


The Breaking of Things

by jaythewriter, TheElusiveOllie



Category: Marble Hornets
Genre: Alternate Universe, Asexual Character, Dissociation, Forced Institutionalization, Gen, Great Depression, Historical Inaccuracy, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, M/M, Memory Alteration, Memory Loss, Mental Health Issues, Mental Instability, Mind Control, Possible Abuse, Psychological Horror, Psychological Trauma, Seizures, Social Anxiety, Trans Male Character, gay gay gay gay gay gay gay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-07
Updated: 2015-09-14
Packaged: 2018-04-13 12:01:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 20
Words: 32,843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4521177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jaythewriter/pseuds/jaythewriter, https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheElusiveOllie/pseuds/TheElusiveOllie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Marble Hornets Great Depression AU. It's actually not crack. Mostly, anyway.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Paper

**Author's Note:**

> This AU was concocted by Jay and I some time ago, and I've only just now got around to actually revising and posting it. It's a bit old and my grasp of it is a bit rusty, but hopefully someone out there enjoys it. There will be (probably) numerous historical and in-universe discrepancies, as this piece was conceived before the end of the series itself, and neither Jay nor I are historians.
> 
> Anyone reading this piece should be warned: this fic contains psychological trauma, the hijacking of personalities, mental unrest, dissociation, and gratuitous self-loathing. Canonical mental disorders will be had, incredible queerness will abound, and sexuality/gender headcanons will be generously applied. Certain situations may resemble those reminiscent of domestic abuse due to the aforementioned hijacking of personalities. It is doubtful this work will contain anything worse than the level of horror or unsettling content already present in the source material.

It’s the same thing every day, right at the crack of dawn.

Alex coaxes Jay awake with reluctant hands and gentle mutters of ‘I know, I know’ and ‘you’ll be able to sleep tonight, okay?’. He gets a handful of minutes to make himself look semi-presentable to the public eye while trying his best to hide the fact that he’s been wearing the same clothes all week.

He’s given a stack of papers, still reeking of ink and sweat. The sweat smell never goes away, though sometimes the fresh air is enough to chase away the sting of the ink in his nostrils.

He’s told to head out, and get rid of as many papers as possible before the day is out, and _god please_ make it back before sundown, because, yeah, remember what happened last time he stayed out after dark?

(He does.)

Jay knows the best way to get the ugly job done. Alex is too tall and intimidating, too unsuited to navigating public spaces without arming himself with a steely glare and a fixed scowl. Jay’s skinny limbs and huge eyes, on the other hand, can occasionally rack up sales via the Pity Method.

(Alex’s term for it. _Not_ Jay’s).

It’s working less and less, but as long as there are one or two additional customers he can pull in with his misleadingly sad, wide eyes, it’s worth the lie.

All the same, he finds himself wishing more and more that Alex would do this part of the job instead of sitting in their basement all the time, scribbling out tomorrow’s batch of smelly newspapers. It gets tiring being on his feet all day, chasing after people who look like they might have a couple nickels on them.

The job is very rarely boring, at least. He can say that much.

He sees the same people every day, has come to know their routines and where it is they’re heading first thing in the morning. He knows their predesignated routes, and knows when something is out of place, or when someone is no longer in town. Everyone drifts these days, the loss of a job or a home driving them to search out better prospects or a miserable, freezing, protracted death on the streets. It’s not so strange for people to vanish completely, seemingly without a trace.

He doesn’t like to think about what happens to the people who disappear. Sometimes he’ll catch his gaunt reflection in a closed shop’s window and wonder if he’s next.

Today, it only takes Jay a minute to understand that something has changed.

There’s the air of hopelessness hanging rich and dry amongst the thick reek of factory smog and the people weaving between worn, smoke-blackened brick buildings and pacing across roughly cobbled streets. That hasn’t changed. The unemployed prowling the streets for a job, any job, are easily recognizable, courtesy of their wretched, taut expressions and patchy clothing (and Jay picks self-consciously at his own thinning clothes and lowers his eyes to the ground) while the richer - or at least marginally less poor - folk skirt past them with barely a nervous glance at the thin and the hungry as they pass.

But something, today, is _different_. And then Jay sees what.

There’s someone _new_.

Jay spies him on the corner, outside the library where he likes to hide out when it gets too rainy to browse the streets for likely customers. The newcomer smokes just outside the shabby brick-and-mortar establishment, leaning up and against the outside wall with projected apathy as he sucks his cigarette down to its very last traces of nicotine, three books pinned between elbow and hip. His appearance is no less scruffy and worn than Jay’s, but there’s apparently more to him than that initial judgement - a closer look at the books he carries reveals that their titles all pertain to world history and geography.

Someone who likes to know what’s going on in the world. Perfect.

“Excuse me! Sir!”

Jay makes a beeline for him, plastering an appropriately enthused expression over his features. He hasn’t made a single sale all day, but he’s got a good feeling about this one. The man looks at him with raised eyebrows, like he’s surprised to hear somebody talking to him.

“Can I help you?” he asks, though his surprise hardens into an irritable downward twist of the mouth once he notices the newspapers Jay is holding. Undeterred, Jay continues his advance. That’s okay. He can still work with that.

“I’ve never seen you around before,” Jay remarks casually, remembering Alex’s curt advice: act friendly even if they get nasty, be the innocent kid around town no one suspects. That last bit's important. “You new in town?”

“You could say that,” the stranger replies. He’s still looking at Jay oddly, like he doesn’t quite know what to make of him. Jay smiles brightly, unfolding a paper from the rest he’s carrying, but despite the disarming gesture, the stranger still stands too tense, too wary, hardly at ease.

“So you probably wanna know what’s happening around here,” Jay says, proudly holding out the paper. The newcomer picks at his suspender strap, staring down at the proffered object thoughtfully. Then he frowns, eyes flicking back up to Jay, wary and apologetic. Jay’s brief spurt of confidence immediately wilts.

“Sorry. Not interested.”

Swearing inwardly, Jay runs through his remaining strategies and throws dignity to the winds. Shoulders slumping, he lets the paper drop to his side.

“My boss isn’t gonna be happy with me if I don’t make at least one sale,” he says, letting his voice crack for good measure. The man nervously flicks his stub of a cigarette, ash falling between his fingers. He looks Jay up and down, eyes lingering over the tear in his tattered dress shirt, the patches over his trousers.

He sighs.

"It’s a nickel, right?”

Jay nods eagerly, his dejected expression resolving into a broad grin. The newcomer-gone-customer reluctantly fishes a nickel from his pockets and flicks it into the air. Going up on his toes, Jay catches it mid-descent.

“Thanks, sir!” he says happily, stuffing it into the satchel clipped to his belt.

“Yeah, yeah,” his newest customer mutters, and accepts the paper thrust into his hands. Jay turns away, practically skipping as he heads back down the street. The faint thunk of the paper hitting the bottom of the library trash can ought to be disheartening, considering the real business comes from those who find the messages _within_ the papers, but Jay’s not ready to give up on his sole victory of the day.

When he reels someone in, he can always get them to buy more. He can be persistent when he wants to be.


	2. Smoke

Day after day, it’s the same routine. That _guy,_ newspaper guy, running along behind Tim, pinning him with the biggest damn puppydog eyes he could ever imagine, asking Tim to please please buy it please _please_ because he needs _someone_ to.

Yeah, okay, the first time he’d folded, and that had been a mistake. Now every day the guy tails him, pulling his trademark sad-eyed look, requesting that Tim help him make at least _one_ sale for the day, sir, _please._

After a week of the same song and dance, Tim gets fed up and tells him where he can stick his newspapers. This is also a mistake, as it turns out, because this hostility only seems to increase the paper boy’s resolve.

Next he tries ignoring him. The guy is only a couple inches taller than him and he’s so damn _scrawny_ to boot, hardly cutting an intimidating figure. Hell, Tim is surprised that on the colder, windier days he isn’t blown away, easy as a leaf. At one point Tim gets tired of pretending the newspaper boy doesn’t exist and straight-up snaps at him, reminding him that he doesn’t have the money to spare on his damn papers and he should run off and find a _real_ job like the rest of them, and so _what_ if Tim doesn’t exactly have a job at the moment? That’s neither here nor there. The little guy needs the advice, all right?

Finally that, too, gets tiring, just like seeing the newspaper boy’s wide-eyed, pleading gaze crumple into disappointment. Now, every day, after a certain measure of begging for him to _please buy the paper, sir,_ Tim grumbles and growls but gruffly obliges because _fuck it_ \- the guy needs some meat on him. That’s just the decent thing to do. He’s tired and overworked, obviously. Malnourished, certainly. Always following that long-coated bastard around.

Tim doesn’t like him.

Maybe it’s the permanent scowl locking down his features, or the gun Tim’s certain he's glimpsed a few times, tucked securely in the folds of his coat. Either way, that Kralie guy. Well. He’s bad news.

 _News._ Tim feels proud of the pun, almost.

Either way, he just wants the guy to get away from his employer, find someone else to tag along behind.

As long as it isn't Tim.

Tim has enough problems to deal with.

He snorts softly to himself, drawing the last traces of nicotine from his stub of a cigarette. He holds the smoke for as long as he can and lets it burn his mouth, his throat, before exhaling a long, languid breath. The chill of the winter has already settled deep into the cobbled streets, the bricked buildings, the flickering streetlamps, and it’s begun to creep into his bones as well. The cigarettes give him the illusion of warmth and he clings to the sensation eagerly. He’s running low on the soothing warmness, now, and only the possibility of a proper job stands between him and having to quit cold turkey.

He's heard rumors that the Kralie guy will be hiring soon. If he is, Tim will be first in line. He'll have to be, if he wants to keep up a semi-decent living space. As much as he dislikes the man, Tim doesn’t exactly have the luxury of being picky.

And it’s good work. At least, Tim assumes. People are paid, as far as he can tell, and that’s good enough for him. Though if Kralie’s newspaper flunkie is anything to go by, it doesn’t seem that they’re fed or treated very well.

The thought makes him frown.

And there’s still the question of, well, _how_ exactly. Kralie doesn’t seem to specialize in any one enterprise, nor does he particularly seem the type to be well-off in times like these. Especially considering his trademark coat is easily the most worn and tattered article of clothing he has.

But then, were the money comes from doesn’t matter. It’s money, and that’s good enough.

Money’s hard for anyone to come by, of course, but that doesn’t stop Tim from nursing a personal bitterness toward the entire damn job market and the crumbling economy in general. It’s hard enough to get a job now without having to break it to your future employer that, oh yeah, you’ve spent your entire life in a mental institute due to psychological issues of a complex, unclear, and probably incurable nature. Tim had been lucky enough to score the first couple of jobs - mostly agricultural stuff, farming, moving things around - nothing that required an overabundance of brainpower or even a background check. He can make money doing things he knows how to do, being the reliable muscle. It’s never ideal but it’s _money,_ and that’s the important bit. The only bit that matters, really.

But. And there's always a _but._

Issues.

Tim has more than a few of them.

There’s the hospital thing, sure, but also the ‘parental abandonment’ thing, not to mention the ‘occasionally losing massive chunks of time’ thing and that’s generally not a selling point for a potential employer, no matter how forgiving.

He’s down to his last pack of cigarettes, homeless, and probably facing a very bleak outcome. And _still_ that damn newspaper guy tails him, every day, pleading with him to buy a fucking newspaper.

With _what?_ Tim can’t spare the nickels. He never should have given him hope in the first place. Still, he grumbles and suffers through the persisting pleads, ignoring the boy with his stupid over-sized cap and sad-eyed expression to the best of his ability. The early winter mornings are harsh and biting, and Tim can see the way the guy shivers beneath his thin coat and Tim is most definitely not feeling guilty about it, absolutely _not._

It's not until one day that the paper guy tries to physically force a newspaper on him that Tim actually lashes out proper, muscles shivering under the prickling sensation of fingers brushing over his, spectral reminders of needles and doctors and the Bad Things that he would frankly rather not devote any time to thinking about as he practically shoves the guy to the cobblestoned ground, snarling some incoherent, mangled threat about never _fucking_ touching him ever again.

The newspaper guy immediately scrambles away, wide-eyed. His expression is one of confusion and hurt but Tim ignores it, trying to recover his composure with another pull from his cigarette, trying to shrug away the shuddering discomfort seeded in his chest, coalescing around his spine.The fucking paper guy, well, okay, he couldn’t have known that, but he should know better than to invade a stranger’s personal space. It doesn’t matter how many days he spends following Tim around like a lost puppy, he still knows nothing about the man, much less earned the level of familiarity with him that would make Tim comfortable with that level of physical contact. 

After a moment’s hesitation, the newspaper guy begins gathering up his fallen papers. He looks so thoroughly downtrodden, so disappointed and startled and upset, that Tim can’t suppress a pang of remorse.

 _He_ touched _Tim_. That’s not _Tim’s_ fault.

He watches the other man scramble to retrieve his livelihood, shoulders creeping to his ears with indecision and belated guilt.

The man is probably starving and cold.

He certainly _looks_ the part, anyway.

With a low sigh, Tim kneels down and wearily begins to help, scraping snow from the tumble of spilled papers and returning them. The guy couldn’t have known touching Tim would elicit such a vicious response, after all.

“Thanks,” he mutters when Tim hands him the admittedly much less clean-looking stack of papers. Tim grunts, shrugs, and returns to the remains of his cigarette. He expects the guy to return to whatever roundabout route he has, but he doesn’t. Instead, he’s busy rummaging about in his pockets.

“Sir?”

Tim turns.

The paper guy holds up a worn stump of a cigarette. Offering it, even. To Tim.

Tim can only stare at what he assumes is an apology gift, utterly at a loss.

He reaches out and takes it.

“Uh. Mm.” He rolls it awkwardly between two fingers, completely uncertain as to what he should do with it. “Um. Thanks?”

The newspaper guy nods solemnly, then makes an odd spasming movement, almost as if he’s about to salute, but instead tosses Tim a clumsy wave and starts walking away, likely to go pester whoever else isn’t in a mood to buy a paper today.

Tim watches him go. He doesn’t quite know how to feel about the gift, but the encounter leaves an odd warm tightness in his chest that is, well, it’s not _un_ pleasant.

 _Starving,_ his chemically unbalanced lump of a brain reminds him. _Alone. Freezing._ And didn’t Tim see those dark circles under his eyes?

Tim closes his eyes and sighs.

“Wait.”

The newspaper guy half-turns, glancing over one shoulder. His expression is one of tentative hope.

Tim fumbles through his pockets for the last of the money he’d earned from his previous job, the one he’d been fired from after apparently disappearing for three weeks without warning. Where he’d been during those three weeks was anyone’s guess, including his own, and he couldn’t _really_ fault his employer for giving an unreliable worker the boot, but it hadn’t made him any less bitter and very openly _pissed_ about the decision.

He turns his mind away from the reminder. He's eating into his cigarette money at this point. But, honestly, what good would those do him now other than offer the all-too-brief illusion of manufactured warmth?

Tim doesn't look up, cigarette stuck between his teeth as he retrieves the smooth silver disc.

“Your damn newspapers, they’re a nickel. Right?”

It’s worth it for the tiny smile he gets in return.

“Thanks, sir!”

“Tim,” he mutters, barely audible.

“Huh?”

“Tim. M’name.”

“Oh.” The paper guy makes another strange movement, which Tim recognizes as him offering his hand but then remembering the last time he touched the other man and quickly withdrawing. “Well, uh. I’m Jay.”

Yeah, Tim didn’t ask.

“Hm,” Tim grunts, not exactly _politely,_ but without his typical surly glare. He accepts the newspaper, taking note of how the newspaper guy - Jay - carefully makes sure their fingers don’t touch.

“Thanks,” Jay reiterates as he accepts Tim’s money. The smile is gone, but his eyes are still bright with relief.

“And hey.” Can’t hurt to put in a good word on his own behalf. “If your man is hiring anytime soon, let me know, all right?”

This nod is slower and less enthusiastic, colored by the wariness that enters his stance.

Jay departs on his merry, and Tim isn’t entirely sure how to feel about the exchange. He feels bad for the guy, sure, but he can’t really afford to buy his stupid papers every day out of pity. He’s complied more than a few times now and Jay is certain to expect him to again. Tim has only encouraged him. It’ll be even _harder_ to shake the little nuisance after this.

Or - not a nuisance, not really. He seems to enjoy Tim’s company, for what that’s worth, and Tim can’t say that about very many people. Or _any._

Flipping through the paper provides nothing but a distraction from the cold, from the honestly revolting cigarette Jay had given him, from the lack of a job or food or warm clothes, from any of Tim’s failures. The text itself isn’t even well written, and the paper the font is printed on is cheap and easily tearable. 

Terrible, one might say.

The pun coaxes a bitter half-smile out of Tim for a second. The paper’s flammable, likely, so it might provide a few precious minutes’ warmth for the night. He’d instantly regretted tossing the first one he’d pity-bought, as he’d wasted its capacity to serve as impromptu firewood. And tonight he doesn’t have any plans as to where he should stay other than perhaps chancing a look in some of the half-built apartments that aren’t likely to be completed anytime soon, with their crumbling scaffolding and deserted work stations. He isn’t above squatting, after all, and he sincerely doubts that anyone else in the area is either. 

Shaking his head at the paper’s awful quality, Tim flips it over to the back in search of anything of interest, scowling at the wobbly lines of the typography. It isn’t even _uniform._ Every few letters are bolded -

Oh.

_Oh._

Wait a minute.

Tim starts counting the letters, then flips through the pages in search of more. The bolded letters aren’t printing errors - they’re deliberate. They're a _code._

“D-R-O…” Tim mutters as he runs through each page, the letters forming words. Words that don’t sit very well with him.

It doesn't take long to decode the hidden message. He reads the clipped fragments aloud, dreading each word as it slips out from the pages:

“Drop tonight at seven. Paper boy will carry. Usual spot.”

Tim looks away from the paper, his stomach compressing into a hard knot, his eyes shuttering closed, his throat taut.

So.

So Jay’s job as a seemingly innocent paper guy isn't _really_ all that, is it. He'd appealed to Tim's sense of pity, all wide eyes and pleading looks, _damn_ him, and Tim had fallen for it, for the entire act, easy as Jay pleased. Tim swears under his breath, cursing the newspaper guy, cursing himself, cursing his uncharacteristic lack of judgment. There’s a _reason_ he distances himself from everyone as a damn policy. Opening up is _always_ out of the question, even under the most promising of circumstances. Even if those people have big pathetic dog eyes and offer cigarettes and seem like generally nice people. It’s always a facade. It’s always a play. They’re all liars, every one. Even Jay.

 _Especially_ Jay.

 _Always_ question. Never blindly _trust._

Tim breathes out a low huff of air, hunching his shoulders, trying and failing to shrug away the absurd feeling of betrayal. He can’t be betrayed by someone who was never even his friend to begin with, someone he didn't even _know_. He doesn’t dare examine how he bought into Jay’s routine, fell for his pitiful appearance. Of _course_ if he’s close with someone like _Kralie,_ he'd be involved in something illicit. Tim should have anticipated this. He should’ve listened to his damn instincts.

Liars. All of them.

Tim balls up the newspaper and leaves it in shreds on the ground.


	3. Kralie

Times get bad and people get desperate. That’s how it goes and how it’s always gone.

Desperate people are the easiest to control. They’re mindless, rabid creatures who want and crave and desire and _need_ and look to whatever sources necessary to obtain those needs. Desperate people don’t ask questions. They accept. They look the other way. They do _whatever it takes._

Desperate people are easy. Easy to control, easy to understand.

And this city, hell, this entire _country_ is simply crawling with them. All of them desperate, all of them lost. All of them looking for a job and a living, honest or no. All of them with families and tiny fragile hopes and dreams of one day maybe having a form of steady employment.

Alex is lucky. He’s landed himself an entire city full of desperate souls, all willing to pay however much he asks for to get their next bitter dose of senselessness. Alcohol numbs the pain of not knowing the bleak future and they’re all scrambling for it.

Alex is all too willing to give it to them.

He doesn’t succumb to the temptation of the bottle himself, no. He’s wanted to on several occasions, too many to count. But there’s the fire of forgetting in that liquid, the same fire that would dull his mind and scald his reason when he needs himself clear and focused. And, more importantly, Jay needs him clear and focused. That’s what matters.

(He tells himself this, he lies. The bottle is always there, taunting him. And he indulges, repeatedly. _Repeatedly.)_

(Jay acts like he doesn’t know, pretends better than Alex can, but that’s a lie, too. That’s the entirety of their relationship. Lies and untruths.)

(And hope, maybe. Just a drop.)

_“Big house, one day. Just us. No more getting thrown out.”_

That’s the American Dream, after all, right?

_“Big house, one day. White picket fence. Just us. We’ll get there soon, okay?”_

But of course, Alex is too skeptical to buy into that hopeless ideal. That sort of thinking is something more along Jay’s vein of thought, not for gruff, cynical boss Kralie. Sort-of boss. Alex writes the papers and does the strategizing - where to deliver, when, to whom, how, all of the lovely details. Jay’s just the delivery boy.

(It’s _safer_ that way. Better. For Jay, anyhow. The guy just wants his house and his life and a place where he _won’t_ be kicked around for shit, and Alex doesn’t, wont _ever_ blame him for that.)

And every night Jay comes back from the route exhausted, fretting about how many papers he didn’t sell today, worrying about how their _‘true consumer pool,’_ as he refers to them in dramatic undertone, could be dwindling by the day. And Alex tells him, every time, not to worry.

(But of course he does. Jay’s just the worrying type. His restless pacing keeps Alex up at night, and part of him hates it.)

(Part of him doesn’t mind so much, because it’s _Jay_ and if Jay’s around, that means things can’t possibly be so terrible.)

“Met a guy today,” Jay says hesitantly over dinner. Dinner is different every day; just one of the many exciting things of living as a not-quite-legal resident of an abandoned building running a not-quite-legal underground bootlegging business. Some customers can only pay in meals, with money and jobs in equal scarcity. Alex doesn’t care how they pay him, as long as payment comes their way. Whatever helps him and Jay keep at it together for another day is fine with him. 

Tonight’s meal is a soup of dubious origin. They don’t think too hard on what’s in it or where it could have come from, just keep reminding themselves that it’s _food,_ that’s the important thing, and they will take what they can damn well get.

“Hm?” Alex’s gaze, firmly fixed on the wall opposite him as he tries _very hard_ not to visualize what the lumpier bits of the soup could be, flicks up to meet Jay’s.

Jay swallows and repeats. “Met a guy.”

Well _that_ could mean anything. 

There’s a pause.

“And?” Alex keeps his tone neutral. Jay could be going anywhere with this.

“He bought a paper. Was real nice.”

“Think he’ll keep buying?”

Shrug. Alex frowns and goes back to very stubbornly _not_ focusing on the food he’s putting in his stomach. If the man isn’t a potential buyer, Alex frankly isn’t very interested. 

Not like Jay. Jay takes a certain fascination with the people he interacts with, even the rude and callous ones or the ones that tell him to fuck off or the ones that ignore him, walk straight past him pretending he’s not there. Jay doesn’t _like_ people, not exactly. Alex certainly doesn’t think so. If he liked people he wouldn’t shuffle his feet awkwardly and mumble all the time, or spend every free moment locked in his room or hovering around Alex. Jay feels safer with the man, of this Alex has no doubt, but he knows he takes comfort in the self-imposed isolation. Inquisitive as he is, Jay likes the space and quiet that comes with their lonely life.

But he’s _intrigued_ by people, ever observant, always watching. Alex wishes he wouldn’t. Staring attracts attention, and in their business, attention is never good.

“He likes books,” Jay continues lightly. 

Alex sighs and massages his brow. He doesn’t want to hear about Jay’s latest endeavor. He doesn’t want to listen to questions about this new stranger that neither of them can answer.

“Smokes, too.” 

“That’s great.”

_That’s boring._

“Threw the paper out right away, though.”

Alex suppresses a smirk. Pulled the Pity Method, did he? Always a reliable one. The big eyes are what sell it.

“You think he’d be interested in...what we do?” Alex puts a little more emphasis on the last three words, trying to steer the conversation back to business, something he’s a little better at. 

Another shrug.

“Looked real smart, you know? Carried books and things.”

_I don’t care._

“Think maybe he went to school?”

_I don’t care._

“Alex?”

“Well, this was great,” Alex says loudly as he drops his empty bowl on the crate that serves as a table. He has no interest in this stranger, whoever he is, unless he’s just as thirsty for for the numbing bite of alcohol as the rest of their customer pool. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Jay wilts a little, his enthusiasm withering, but Alex can’t afford to care. There’s too much to do, too many drops to delineate, too many papers to write. Jay can live in that world all he likes, _his_ world, where things are considerably less grim. 

Alex has work to do.

With any luck, Jay will shut up about it, find some other new stranger to be the temporary subject of his focus. 

He doesn’t. 

A few weeks later he brings him up again.

“You know that guy?”

“Hm?” 

Alex and Jay sit on the floor of the makeshift study, Jay against the wall, fingers fidgeting with his over-sized cap while he watches his sort-of boss as he scribbles out tomorrow’s issue. Alex scratches at the back of his head absently with his pencil, silently debating the merits of subtly changing the code in the interest of safety.

Jay’s restive twitching doesn’t halt as his tone falters. “That guy. The book guy?”

Alex looks up from his work to stare at the other man, confused. 

“Sold him a paper a while ago. He, uh. Only ever bought a few.”

Not a regular part of the clientele, then. Alex returns to his work. He doesn’t care.

“He said he heard you’d be hiring soon?”

Alex’s head shoots up. If people on the street might getting word of their internal processes, one of them must being more careless than he’d thought. He and Jay had occasionally _discussed_ roping someone new into the business, at least part-time, but they’d only ever kept it between them. If anyone had overheard, or if Jay had _told -_

_Jay wouldn’t._

_Would he?_

“Did _you_ tell him?” Alex snaps out, his tone hard, swarming with the undercurrent of rage that colors everything he does without him even meaning it, even when he doesn’t want to lash out at the only friend he has in the whole world.

At least, not without provocation.

But if Jay’s been dropping rumors, well-intentioned or no, that may very well _be_ a provocation.

“What?” Jay shrinks away, his alarm readily apparent. “No! I didn’t! He just _knew!”_

Alex stands without meaning to, drawing himself up menacingly. The tautness in his shoulders, the clenched fists, the tight jaw, all of it reeks of hostility. 

He forces the set of his shoulders to relax as he returns to his place on the floor, at Jay’s level. 

_That was -_

He shakes aside the thought. Jay continues to look at him, plainly nervous. Maybe even scared. 

Alex looks away, immediately regretting his disproportionate outburst.

“Okay.” Alex does his best to sound contrite. “All right. So we don’t know how he found out. Did you give him an answer?”

“I - no.”

“No?”

“No.” There’s no conviction behind the word, just wide eyes and a slight tremor.

He’s lying.

Alex shuts his eyes. He wants to hit something. Not Jay, just a wall maybe, or one of the bastard policemen who are always on their tail. 

“Are you lying to me, Jay?” he asks quietly. The words are measured, his tone level, but they can both sense the coiled anger humming beneath.

Jay doesn’t answer. He turns his cap over and over in his hands in a slow, continuous revolution. He seems to be finding the dirt beneath his scuffed fingernails far more interesting than their conversation.

“Jay.” The word isn’t sharp, just firm, but Jay flinches regardless.

“I didn’t say anything,” the younger man offers hopefully.

“So you didn’t tell him ‘no’.”

“I didn’t tell him ‘yes’ either.”

That’s no answer. Alex stands and starts pacing. He’ll have to play this bit carefully. If someone knows about them, about where they’re situated -

There’s probably a reward for them out there somewhere. They could get boxed off to separate states for illegal stashes of alcohol, the _‘delivery service,’_ all of it.

That’s the thing about desperate souls, he fumes bitterly. They may be easy to control, but only for the highest bidder. They turn on their masters without hesitation or sympathy once someone offers them a better deal. It’s just their nature. Alcohol and the burning comfort of drowned sorrows is one thing, but promise of a monetary reward is quite another. Alex can’t afford to let this one go, not if he knows. They just need enough money to disappear, live on their own. 

Where no one can hurt them.

“Who is he? You know his name?”

“Are you gonna hurt him?” Jay’s expression is worried, scared. Alex almost scoffs aloud. Worry. For a stranger. 

He needs to be more careful about to whom he deals out his sympathies.

“His _name,_ Jay.”

Jay looks at the ground again, guilty. 

“Tim.” The name is barely above a whisper.

That’s all Alex needs. He seizes his coat, pulls it on. He checks the interior pocket and takes comfort in the shape of the gun outlined there. He likely won’t need it, but if the other man decides to come to blows, Alex will be prepared. 

Jay catches the movement and the worried furrow on his brow deepens.

“I’ll be back,” Alex says shortly. He doesn’t wait for a reply. He knows this city back to front - wherever this Tim is, he’ll find him. He’ll find him, he’ll interrogate him, he’ll discover what he knows.

And, if need be, he’ll end him.

Alex will do whatever it takes to keep him and Jay safe.

After all, he’s just another desperate soul.


	4. Stone

It hasn’t been a good day.

There’s no room left in the unfinished apartments for squatting (this town’s just full of people like him, all homeless, jobless, and lost). Tim managed to salvage what few possessions he still had in the beginning of the day before the fresh surges of “will work for food” sign-holders flooded the apartments. Now he’s homeless again, for a certain definition of the term, but, hey, at least he’s got his battered coat and lighter. He’s been reduced to, as usual, scouring the pavement for the most comfortable-looking patch of cobblestones for tonight’s fitful sleep.

It’s cold. Tim’s jacket is thin and worn and does little to shield him from the uncomfortably cool breeze as it hisses overhead. His uncontrollable shivering is more than a little disconcerting, but there’s nothing of the prickling or heat or shaky hands or too-fast heartbeat that always accompanies his fits, so he keeps walking, resolute. He can’t afford to dictate his daily routine based on the constant fear that one of those fits will strike, as they tend to do at the most inconvenient of times, and leave him breathless and trembling and wondering how much time he’s spent gone.

What can he say? He’s done his best to adjust. It helps that friends don’t come easy to him, not when he already sequesters himself with his sickness and his isolation

He doesn’t _mind,_ really. Friends aren’t his priority; he’s gotten through much of his life without them. His primary concerns are money and work. Mostly the former.

Possibly also cigarettes. If he wasn’t already trying to wean himself off the nicotine in anticipatory apprehension.

Tim gives up the search for a good place to sleep with a shrug, one finger tapping on the box of cigarettes with its shrinking supply, considering whether or not he can afford to waste one here and now. 

He pockets them. The nicotine will just keep him awake - which may not be such a bad thing, considering he has no place to actually _sleep,_ but he’s made his decision.

The streets are empty this time of night (day? is it morning yet?), but Tim likes it better this way. Emptiness, isolation, loneliness - except that’s not quite the word. Loneliness has such a distinctly sad connotation to it, and Tim doesn’t mind it so much. _Aloneness._ That’s a better word for it. Tim values his _aloneness._

And right on cue, the crescendo of approaching footsteps drowns away the distracted swirl of his thoughts, and Tim resigns himself to facing the possibility of actual human contact. Even a forced greeting has to be dragged out of him these days. Even with that paper guy, whatever his name was, the first person to speak to him in _years_ without the veneer of detached, professional neutrality.

Memories of newspapers and oversized caps run screaming from Tim’s head as his heart drops into his stomach. He knows the man approaching him. He’d know him anywere.

Kralie.

His silhouette is unmistakable. The distinct long coat flaps darkly behind him, an absurd parody of some lean bird of prey. The light glints fiercely off wire glasses. He’s tall but hunched, almost predatory, moving directly for Tim, tall and purposeful.

 _Too_ purposeful. Tim swallows, trying to bury his swelling anxiety in the hunch of his shoulders. 

The Kralie guy stops in front of him. The streets are darkened and silent, but Tim can still make out the other man’s furious glare, hear the hard, angry breathing through his nose.

It’s an invasion of Tim’s personal space, and he doesn’t like it. But he doesn’t back away.

“Can I help you?” he asks. He tries to say it coolly, but _fuck_ he’s shaking like a leaf. The shadows thrown by the buildings are his lifeline, and he frantically hopes they hide the way he can’t hold his hands still.

He’s fine. He’s absolutely fine. He’s fine, and he’s normal, and he’s all right. He’s fine.

He repeats the mantra in his head, wary as always of the danger. He’s fine. Just cold, and possibly slightly anxious. Possibly.

He’s fine.

“You’ve talked to him. Jay?” Kralie growls. It sounds as if it takes a distinct effort for him to grind the words out.

 _“Jay.”_ For a second Tim’s mind cuts away from the tension, a flash of relief lightening his black mood. _“That_ was his name.”

Kralie shoves him, hard, planting both hands on his chest and _pushing,_ thrusting Tim harshly against the wall. The force of impact jars the breath from Tim’s throat for a minute, but that’s not what sets him off.

“You stay _away,”_ Kralie says, the threat implicit. “Stay away from _both_ of us. I don’t know where you heard we were hiring, but - ”

“Don’t touch me.”

“What?”

“Don’t _touch me.”_ Tim twists the words out viciously, torquing them into something coiled and venomous. The quivering, the illicit trembling, even the pervasive fear, all evaporated the instant Kralie had laid his hands on Tim. He’s tense, rigid, icy calm.

A muscle twitches in his jaw in silent warning.

Kralie doesn’t seem to notice or care. “You stay _away_ from us, you understand?”

“I told you not to touch me.” Tim’s voice is very soft. It scares him in some distant, isolated part of his skull; he doesn’t quite recognize it. He can’t find the scared little boy from the hospital or the man too cowardly to argue with the doctors or any part of himself he knows. 

This courage doesn’t belong to him - he’s just borrowing it for a spell.

“Did you _hear_ me?” Kralie snarls.

The anticipatory winding back. The dark streak of a fist. The thud of skin on skin.

Tim hits him. 

Which is a mistake, as he immediately recognizes. But there’s adrenaline pounding in his fists and lungs and damn it all, he doesn’t _like_ Kralie so he’s going to give the man what he’s got coming for him for _months_ and he’s going to act on instinct.

Kralie cradles his jaw for an instant, glaring daggers. 

Tim makes a personal note: his instincts are terrible.

The rest is a tangle of fists and hurt. Something scrapes across Tim’s neck - a hand? - and he wants to bite it, feral. There’s a wrist so he grabs it and twists, someone yelps, he’s done something right but then the someone strikes the back of his legs, he topples and drops onto one knee, hissing. Two swings, they retreat, so he’s back on two feet and he’s pressing forward and taking swipes at their face. He forgets who he’s fighting or even why, but it’s important, he knows this.

When they break apart, Tim’s knuckles are bruised and his ribs ache where Kralie battered them. He feels the blood flowing sluggishly from one nostril. Kralie, on the other hand, sports a heavily bleeding lip and a black eye for his trouble. Any regret Tim might have had for his actions quickly dissolves under the vicious pulse of shameless, ruthless satisfaction.

For a moment the two men stand, facing each other, their breathing heavy. So now that they’ve worked out all those pesky emotions, Tim thinks coldly, maybe they can talk business.

Tim straightens first, pushing his floppy hair from his eyes. He can feel the motion leaving a dark, warm streak on his forehead.

“Are we done?” he asks evenly.

Kralie doesn’t respond. He looks a great deal more winded than Tim, but his body isn’t as used as Tim’s is to being subjected to mysterious bruises and scrapes of unknown origin. Tim’s woken up in places he doesn’t recognize, nose bleeding, head throbbing, maybe a broken limb or two, far too many times for him to count. He’s used to it. He knows how to recover from it.

“Look,” says Tim. “I heard it on the streets, all right? No one in particular. I was just curious. That’s all.”

Kralie carries on glowering. Maybe he doesn’t find Tim worth the response, or maybe he simply can’t think of one.

“Sorry I offended you,” he says blithely in a tone that clearly implies he’s not sorry at all. “You know how work’s tough to come by. I hear there’s a job and I go for it, no questions asked. Got that?”

Still no response. Tim can’t help but wonder if he clipped the other man in the throat, the way he’s acting. 

“You know what? I’ve obviously hit a nerve. I’ll just. Yeah, okay.” He thrusts his hands in his pockets and turns to leave. So much for that job he’d heard about. He’ll have to settle for a few more nights spent in derelict apartments and warehouses before moving on to the next town, maybe heading for the coastal areas. Bound to be farms and the like there.

“Hold on.” Kralie sounds a little wheezy as he calls out, but the undercurrent of hostility is still present.

Tim stops.

“How’d you hear about the job?”

Tim turns.

“Just - word on the street, you know? People were talking.” He’s still wary of being punched, but for all Kralie’s terse grunts and guarded composure, the man genuinely seems to want to talk rather than trade blows.

Kralie mumbles something that sounds suspiciously like, _“damn it,_ Jay,” before adding, louder, his tone still sharp with suspicioun, “word spread, then.”

“Seems like.” Tim keeps his tone neutral. He’s not sure where Kralie is going with this.

The other man massages his bruised jaw thoughtfully. 

“Do you want it?”

Tim blinks. 

“What?”

“The job. Do you want it?”

Tim opens his mouth and closes it again. He blinks. He shuffles one foot back.

“I’m sorry, I, uh,” he begins haltingly. “You do realize you’re offering a job to the man who just _punched you in the face.”_

“Yeah.” To his credit, Kralie doesn’t look too pleased at the fact. “Thing is, we could use someone like that. The stuff we do, it isn’t always legal, but it pays well. Actually, uh, it’s - well, it’s never legal. There’s lots of heavy lifting involved, moving things, shifting them about. We could use the muscle. And, well, you’re not weak.”

“That’s good.” Tim is still uncertain as to how he should view this transaction. A minute ago the two men were at each others’ throats. “I mean, I can do that. Honestly, can’t do much else.”

“Don’t need much else.” Kralie looks at him square. “There’s money in it for you, if you’re willing. Can’t promise much besides, but you’ll be paid.”

“That’s good enough for me.”

“Good.” Kralie nods brusquely and straightens his coat.

“But, uh, well.” The question is bothering Tim. _“Why._ I mean, I don’t really wanna remind you, but I did just hit you in the face and all?”

The man is silent. The glare of the moonlight on his glasses masks his expression. Tim doesn’t like that. He likes being able to read people, however shit he is at it.

Kralie looks away. “You already know about the enterprise. All you have to do is keep your mouth shut about it.”

“I can do that too.” He’s not lying. He hasn’t got anyone to blather about this _to._ Friends are for people with roots in the community and social lives and normal things, not unattached psychologically traumatized freaks with wanderlust.

“Good,” Kralie says again. He starts making his way down the deserted pavement, back to whatever hole he crawled from.

“Well, wait, hold up,” Tim calls. Kralie doesn’t turn, so he’s reduced to bellowing after him. “How’ll I know where and when? To start?”

The man still doesn’t turn. He tosses the final words over his shoulder.

“I’ll send you a paper.”


	5. Ice

Snow falls fast and thick, not that it matters. Jay tucks his pant legs into his boots and tugs his sleeves down as far as they go, heavy paper bag over his shoulder. The weather doesn’t change the amount of people willing to buy the scraps of paper and ink that passes for newspapers these days.

That’s the hope, anyway.

He’s turning the corner onto his usual route when he bumps into a familiar face, quite literally, two bodies impacting in a collision force that sends them both toppling unceremoniously into the nearest patch of snow. Immediately, Jay scrambles upright, apologies bubbling in his throat even as he shudders wildly against the icy touch of snow against bare skin.

“I’m - I’m so sorry, oh god -”

“No, I wasn’t paying attention, I, uh.” Tim falls over his words, stiff and stern-faced. He shuts his eyes when he straightens up, fists clenched at his side, as if trying to contain something uncontainable. “I looking for the, uh, the, you know. Where you and Kralie are holed up.”

“Oh, uh. You’re going the right way,” Jay confirms with a nod. He brushes the snow from his front, trying not to think about how red and raw his fingers are going to be for the rest of the day. 

Tim says nothing. Jay looks up from his work, brow furrowed in concern. “You okay?”

“Touching.”

Jay opens his mouth, puzzled, but it’s not hard to recall the last time he brushed up against Tim in the physical sense, pressing a paper into his hands in a sequence of events that caused the man to flare at him furiously for reasons unknown.

Formerly unknown.

So Tim abhors skin contact.

All right.

“Uh. Sorry.” Like that’ll mean anything now. “I’ll - try to watch where I’m going,” says Jay.

“That’s twice you’ve apologized now. I think we’re good,” Tim grinds out between gritted teeth. He breathes out slow, shoulders relaxing from their taut slope. His smile is little more than a forced, grim line but the fact that there was an attempt at all prompts a tiny, hopeful twitch from one corner of Jay’s mouth. 

“So,” Tim says slowly, sounding as though he’s making an earnest effort to keep his tone steady, “Kralie’s inside?”

“Yep.” Jay glances obliquely away, glimpsing potential customers as they stream onto the cobbled streets, footprints punching darkened dimples into the snow. 

Unlike them, Tim’s track of footprints don’t seem to come from anywhere. Jay frowns and looks back to Tim. 

“Wait, uh. Where’re you going after work?”

It must’ve be a question Tim wasn’t expecting, because his shoulders creep up defensively again, hands thrust into his pockets as he looks away.

“Nowhere specific,” he mutters by way of answer. “Warmest spot I can find, I guess.”

The offer spills out in a rush, before Jay can really consider the wisdom of it. But, really, the worst that can happen is that Tim says no.

Or Alex says no.

He willfully endeavors not to consider that.

“You oughta stay with us.”

Tim gives him a hard look, as if suspicious of Jay’s motives. He seems to have trouble processing.

“What.” The word is flat and toneless, bereft of the rising pitch of a question. 

“I mean. If you want to,” Jay amends, fully and painfully aware that this isn’t really his decision to make. Alex ultimately has the final word in who stays with them, he always does, but Jay can’t see the harm in _offering._ Besides, if they’re going to be hiring the guy, the least they can do is make sure he doesn’t freeze solid in the streets trying to find some place to sleep.

“I don’t, uh.” Tim doesn’t meet his eyes, stare skirting the icy ground, one hand rubbing an arm. “I’m not sure that’s such a good idea.”

“Well, you need some place to stay, don’t you?” The question is innocent enough, but Tim’s head jerks up sharply. He doesn’t seem to quite know where to look, or what to do with his hands.

“I just don’t think that’s a good idea,” he says a little too loudly.

“Why not?”

“It just, it - ” Tim’s hands abandon their tense fidgeting to flutter helplessly in the air for a moment. “I’m not good, you know? With, with people. And, uh.” He attempts to alleviate the tension with another tight not-smile, but Jay’s heart only sinks a little further into his toes. “Hate to scare off a future employer after just one day, you know?”

“I can ask him,” Jay ventures. “I can ask Alex for you. He’d get it, I know he would - ”

“It’s fine, really.” The way Tim inches away as he says it more or less proves that, no, it’s really really not. But the words are resolute, the note of finality almost Kralie-esque in their implicit declaration that this conversation is over, whether he wants it to be or not.

Jay tries to shrug it off, seemingly nonchalant, but he can tell his disappointment has crept into the way he can’t meet Tim’s eyes.

“Well, uh. The place is that way.” Jay points half-heartedly in the direction Tim had been heading. “There’s an eviction sign out front, but don’t let it put you off. Alex is right inside. He’s waiting.” 

He can’t hide the eager note in those last two words, and chances a final glance up at Tim’s face. The corners of the other man’s mouth are twitching like he wants to smile, but his expression remains stony. He frowns briefly at Jay’s threadbare jacket and badly patched trousers, one side of his mouth twisting in a way Jay can’t interpret.

“Here.” Tim digs a hand into his pocket and pushes something into Jay’s hand. Startled by the abrupt physical contact from the man who once roughly shoved him to the ground over the very same, Jay doesn’t resist. Something small and tarnished silver glimmers in his palm.

Jay turns it over in his hand with awed care. 

“This is _your_ lighter.” He looks up at the man he knows full well is a smoker. “I can’t - ”

“It’s cold today,” Tim says gruffly. “Anyway, I’m out. No point in holding onto it. Just take care of it, right?”

Jay nods. “Yeah. Okay. Thanks.”

Tim just shrugs, corners of his mouth still turned down in a slight grimace. “House is that way, right?” 

Jay nods. Tim turns on his heel and trudges off to the house. 

Jay watches him go. 

He looks back to the spill of people across the ice-ridged walks, slipping the lighter into his pocket. The abruptness of the exchange still has him reeling, but the newspapers and the more prevalent issue of his job haven’t completely deserted him. The sooner he gets a start on them, the more he can sell. The most he can do for Tim now is hope Alex is in a good mood.

Besides, Tim never said an honest _no._ Not really. 

There’s hope for him yet.

\---

It’s been another slow day out on the streets. Jay has all but exhausted his supply of potential customers for the evening, and he still has over half of the papers left over in his sack. He’s tempted to use the lighter Tim lent him and make a small fire for himself, but he doesn’t know if Alex does something special with the papers that he doesn’t sell.

Grumbling under his breath, Jay flops down onto a street corner, a patch of cobblestone thankfully devoid of ice, likely courtesy of some particularly meticulous store owner still miraculously in business. He wonders idly if the cleanliness makes any difference on the influx of customers, and concludes that it really doesn’t matter.

He curls up, shivering. He can’t go back, not this soon, not if he’s just going to be facing Alex and his weary defeat and his disappointment. He never gets angry about the lack of sales, but it would almost be easier if he did. Failing Alex is the last thing Jay wants to do. Returning a bit later with the white lie that he’d looked for more customers all night might smooth it all over.

Jay lets his paper sack slide to the ground, pulls one out and unfolds it, frowning at the way it rips easily beneath his touch. Their supplies are in worse shape than he thought. Alex had said something about it the other night, how he had to write as gently as humanly possible now, lest the paper crumble beneath his fingers.

It shows. The ink is thin, very nearly transparent. Jay has to squint to read the latest stories about this and that and what happened to whom and how the shop down the street has shut down. Nothing very interesting, as he would expect. But then, the point was never to spread regular old news.

He’d asked, this morning, Alex’s lips warm on his forehead.

_“What does the code translate into today?”_

_“Why don’t you find out for yourself?”_

Jay hasn’t had the time to, but now that he’s sitting here doing nothing, he figures he might as well. It’s like a game for him, codes and the breaking of.

He flips through the flimsy paper, slowly this time to avoid damaging it further. Page after page of nothing, boring stories that he could get by wandering the streets and watching his customers live their lives.

Then he sees it, the customary bolded lettering, appearing in one sentence and reemerging in the next. A dark ‘W’ in the middle of ‘Mister Woods’, an ‘a’ in ‘died of old age’…

“Want,” Jay reads aloud to nobody in particular, breath hushing out in a frosty cloud. He squints, head tilting with confusion as the second word forms. “To…”

Then, the third: “Help.”

_“Want to help.”_

“You’re supposed to be selling those.”

Jay jumps, grip tightening automatically with the crinkle of tearing paper. Instinct drives him against the wall he’s settled near, compressing himself into something as small and unassuming as possible, the breath tight in his chest.

He chances a look upwards, and immediately relaxes.

Alex watches him, faintly bemused, head to one side and hands in his pockets.

“Wh - ” Jay scrambles to his feet, hastily dashing snow from his clothes. 

“I know how to move _quietly,”_ says Alex, with a pointed emphasis on _‘quietly’._ Jay gulps, slipping in the snow as he rises, his trajectory halted when Alex steadies him with a hand to his shoulder. Jay leans into the solidity of the touch, allowing Alex to straighten him up, adjusting his disheveled appearance with neat, light touches to his shirt, tightening corners and smoothing edges with practiced ease. 

Jay lets him do it, even as he peels the ruined paper from unresisting fingers.

Alex gives him a once-over, one side of his mouth pulling upward in a brief grin. “Good thing we need a sympathetic image,” he says archly. 

“I _know_ I’m pathetic. No need to lay it on thick.” Jay tugs out of his grip, rolling his shoulders before stooping to retrieve his sack of papers and shoulder it. He eyes Alex dubiously. “How’d you know where to find me?”

“Went looking.” Alex shrugs. He’s not looking at Jay anymore, returning to scanning the empty frost-crested walkways and icy cobblestone. “Nobody’s out this time of night. You stood out.” His gaze flicks back to Jay, and he nudges him gently. “Had me worried.”

Jay frowns, mouth half-open. “It’s not - I mean, it’s just before I’d be coming back any other day.”

_Right?_

Alex quirks an eyebrow at him and lets his head fall back, looking to the sky. Jay follows the suit, stomach dropping when he realizes dusk has long since passed. The moon hovers neatly between two thick dark clouds, a slash of silver against the smoke-stained sky.

“How - ?”

He can’t look away, jaw gone slack. He blinks rapidly, halfway expecting the watery pale disc of the sun to return between blinks.

It doesn’t.

He should’ve _known._

“You should’ve been back an hour ago.”

He chances a look back at Alex, heart thudding nervously in his ribcage, scrabbling for a valid excuse but lacking any such thing. He lost track of time. It’s the only explanation. It’s the only stupid, _stupid_ explanation.

“I guess I got distracted,” Jay says weakly, trying for a shrug. Despite the chill air, a warm flush creeps over the back of his neck.

“Sounds like you,” Alex teases. “Let’s get you home.”

There’s no trace of wrathful worry lurking in his tone, or in the decidedly friendly clapping of a hand to Jay’s shoulder. Jay allows himself to relax, lets Alex steer him back to the sidewalk.

Home sounds good, especially now that Alex won’t be angry with him for not managing to sell every paper this time. He reaches for Alex’s hand, hoping it’ll warm his numb fingers, but gets there too late. The other man’s slender, worn-scarred hands have already occupied themselves with opening a paper.

Distracted, as always. Jay stuffs his hands into his pockets instead, glancing around the empty streets as he tries not to look disappointed. Alex was right - there’s no one around, not even in the corners and crooked alleyways where the homeless, jobless desperate sorts would normally gather. A shiver curls around and up his spine, not strictly from the cold. There’s only one place they could have gone, though that depends whether their families have the money for a proper funeral. Or if their families even cared to remember them.

“Something about this edition doesn’t seem right,” Alex mutters, closing the paper with a careless crunching of too-brittle paper. “Probably the shitty material I get to work with. Looks awful.”

“Maybe.” Jay returns the ruined paper to his bag with a shrug. “Weird code you put in. I don’t remember you mentioning anything about needing more help with the operation.”

Alex freezes in his tracks, the jerking movement sending Jay skidding across the icy ground, landing upon his ass with a rough thud. He winces, biting down the instinctive yelp of pain even as Alex’s hand loops under one arm to prop him upright again.

“Funny, that.” Alex looks at Jay in a hard, unfocused way that he finds inexplicably - unsettling. “I don’t remember writing that either.”

His voice isn’t right. It’s not the voice Jay gets. He’s heard it before, used on their customers when they get difficult. Is Jay being difficult? Is Alex angry with him, despite the warmth in his casual touch? He’s shivering, _bad bad bad._ And it’s darker now, the moon swallowed by the dark underbellies of clouds and the stars blotted out by smog and when did that happen?

(what happened to the streetlights? those flickering flames?)

“W-well, maybe it was a mistake - ”

If anyone made a mistake, it was Jay, daring to open his mouth.

His back hits brick with the low thump of two incompatible surfaces aligned, pressed against the wall, _no escape no escape,_ the rough-edged stone scraping at his skin through the thin material of his dress shirt. Jay gasps, the breath torn from his lungs. 

Alex looms over him, bat-like, sleeves dangling around his thinning arms. There’s no light. The moon gone, the stars.

(can’t get enough to eat, and still, and _still,_ he could destroy anything that crosses his path with those hands - )

“I don’t make mistakes, Jay.” The warning is thick in his words, colder than the chill of melting ice trickling down the back of Jay’s threadbare shirt. “There’s no room for mistakes in this business.” 

He can barely snatch a lungful of icy air to force himself to nod. Alex leans in closer. Without the light of the moon, his eyes are dark behind his glasses. His fingers are tight around Jay’s shoulders, lacking any of their former companionable care. Trapping him. Pinioning him.

“You got that?”

He’s not shouting. Maybe that’s the worst thing. No out-and-out anger there - just vicious, controlled ferocity. Back against an icy wall, and that hard look is still colder than anything Jay’s felt in his life.

It’s only once Jay nods again, a rapid jerk of his head, that the iron grip on his shoulders falls away and he can stand and breathe again. He clutches the shoulder strap of his bag like a lifeline, staring at the ground, knees shaking, vision blurring with - _no._ He’s not going to cry. He shouldn’t have implied that Alex would make that kind of mistake. He knows better than to do anything like that. They’ve been together this long without a problem, and that’s only because of Alex’s caution, Alex’s foresight, Alex’s economy and methodical patience and care.

(but the hiding moon, the stars -)

“I’m going home.” The words are still laced with a hard edge, underscored with some emotion Jay can’t or won’t look at direct. “I thought you were coming.”

Jay nods mutely. It seems that’s the only thing he can get right. Speaking is out of the question. He’ll only get himself in trouble that way.

They make it back to the house in time to catch Tim on his way out. The other man ducks his head as the two enter and tries to slip out unseen, but for a moment Jay forgets the glacial silence of the man next to him, the chill of being pinned to the wall, and lifts a hand in greeting.

“Good first day?”

Tim looks almost guilty as Jay calls out. He dips his head in a clumsy half-nod before shooting a furtive glance at Alex.

“Yeah. Yeah, it was great.”

Jay looks at Alex, then back to Tim. Then back at Alex.

“So, uh. You going back home, then?”

“What?” The question seems to take Tim off guard, his eyes darting between the two of them.

“You got someplace to stay?” Jay hasn’t forgotten their conversation that morning, even if Tim apparently has. Unfortunately, the proposal seems to only have made him more uncomfortable.

“I can work it out,” Tim says, looking like he’d rather get as far away from his employer as possible than do any such thing.

“There, he can work it out, see?” Alex interrupts roughly. “It’s late, Jay. Go get some sleep.”

Jay knows a dismissal when it’s angrily flung his way. His shoulders droop at Alex’s undisguised hostility toward the newcomer, but he knows better than to argue at this point. He complies, moving reluctantly for his room, fists balled into his pockets with knuckles scraping against something small and rectangular.

_Oh -_

“Wait.” Jay stumbles over his own feet to catch Tim before he’s out of the house. He holds out the small, silver object with a meaningful lift of his eyebrows. “Your lighter?”

“Oh.” Tim regards it almost suspiciously for a moment before accepting it and sliding it into his pocket. “Um. Thanks.”

“Thanks for lending it.” Jay chances a partial grin. “It did help, you know.” 

Alex watches the exchange in his periphery, eyes narrowed. 

“You gave him your lighter?” he asks sharply.

“Well, yeah.” To his credit, Tim doesn’t seem remotely startled by the taller man’s fierce tone. “It was cold this morning and it’s not like I needed it, so.” The explanation dwindles into a shrug. “I really should, you know - ” He makes to head out the door.

“Wait.” 

Jay and Tim both freeze when Alex halts them. Jay’s breath itches in his throat but he can’t relinquish the hope, however fragile -

It look as if it physically pains Alex to say it. “Uh. You need a place to stay, we got an extra room next to Jay’s. S’nothing special, but it’s a room and cot. You know. If you need it.”

Tim looks so taken aback Jay grows worried he won’t take the offer. But then he nods, slowly and with wide-eyed wariness, and mumbles an unsteady “thank you.” Alex jerks his head in the room’s direction shortly before stumping off to his own closet, likely to stay up far too late trying to piece messages, codes, organized nonsense together with ink and paper for tomorrow’s papers. 

Jay can’t help the delight that tugs at the corners of his mouth. Tim still has the look of someone who doesn’t quite know what just happened, but when Jay offers to show him to his room, he follows.

It’s reassuring to know that for all his distance and gruffness and coldness, Alex has just as soft a heart as anyone. It just takes a little digging to find it is all.


	6. Ink

Alex doesn’t like Tim.

It’s not jealousy. He’s not an idiot; he knows he has Jay until the end of time. Every waking morning, with the sleepy hollows of his eyes deep and dark, he looks at Alex with that grin that splits him wide open, like he can’t believe he’s his.

He’s not jealous. No matter how often Jay talks about this guy.

But.

But he does think it’s suspicious, seeing Jay take to him as much as he does.

He can hear Tim in the next room, his voice loud over the persistent scratch of the pen. That in itself shows that this bastard’s wriggled far too deep into their operation. When Alex is writing, he shouldn’t hear anything but the faint scrape of pen tip against paper. Jay knows how he likes it. Jay knows how he needs the space and the silence to concentrate. To _think._

Too much noise.

Too much. Too much.

Maybe Alex is being difficult about this, forbidding any sort of change within his and Jay’s household. Change makes him nervous. It sets him on edge. The norm is what keeps their business flowing without any trouble.

But Tim’s new here. He doesn’t know the work as well as Alex and Jay. There’s no reason for him to be here when he’s off the job, regardless of Jay’s kindness. And Jay’s compassionate stance is what dragged him into this mess in the first place.

(He should know better. Nobody is to be trusted. People go into alleyways and never come back out these days. Tim could be the kind of person that waits at the end of those alleys, knife twitching, wrist curled.)

Tim sounds incredulous and amused from the next room. “Why would you even _do_ that?”

“I don’t know! Just, the dog forgot all about how paws work when I tied the newspapers to its feet!”

The paper tears underneath the press of Alex’s pen. He grits his teeth on a painful edge, watching the ink splatter all across his desk, its stains dark against the worn wood.

 _Too much noise._ He sucks a deep breath through his nose, balls up the paper, and puts it aside. He slides another from the pile at the end of his desk and spreads it out, flattening the edges with calloused fingers and the crinkling press of aligning edges. He restarts the process, darkening the correct letters in bold, thick print.

Loud, loud, loud. Disruptive. Dangerous. Alex’s brain itches, nerves jangling, refusing to leave him to his work. He wonders what it’d be like not to be constantly thinking, wondering, worrying, to be free of concern over consequence even as it burns a hole in his skull. If only there could just be _quiet_ in here, in this tangled-up rotted-through brain, without the background noise of doubt or worry or -

Something thumps next door, causing the ceiling to shudder and dust to trickle from ceiling to inkwells. Alex shuts his eyes, clenches his jaw, tries to breathe hard through his nose.

\- or _loud noises._

“Then it ran away from me and I couldn’t keep up, so there we are, just _sprinting,_ and we nearly get run over by an _automobile_ and a _horse,_ and - ”

“Shit, hang on, I need to imagine that, you tripping all over your feet trying to chase a - a tiny dog? While a horse nearly _tramples_ you both.”

“It wasn’t so funny while it was happening!”

“It’s funny now, though, you gotta admit.”

So he’s laughing at the possibility of Jay being trampled by a street horse.

Alex has to stop writing because he _must_ and because the subtle tremor in his hands is too much, it’s _too much_ and because he’s lost too many papers today to mistakes that tear holes through paper, that blot letters with too much ink.

The room is dark. Darker than he remembers. The candle hasn’t gone out. 

He doesn’t know what’s wrong. 

He waves the matter off; focus, focus, get the papers ready for tomorrow, get enough money together, just enough to eat, enough to keep going.

“God, I should leave. Should get some sleep, huh?”

“You say that like we’ve never invited you to stay here.”

“You did, and I’m ignoring it in favor of not burdening you.”

“Oh for - you can just lay on the floor! At worst you’d be a _tripping hazard.”_

Maybe Alex should put his foot down. Just because Jay _likes_ him doesn’t mean he’s safe to be around. Two voices is one thing. Three could be too many, too much movement, too much noise. That’s all Tim is, noise and movement and a threat, a threat to him and Jay and all they’ve been working for the past year and _he can’t lose this to some fucking stranger -_

Alex yelps, ink splattering.

The pen hangs limply in his hands, snapped cleanly in half, its innards leaking over paper and wood.

He throws it to the floor, lurching to his feet, stamping to the doorway separating his so-called office (fucking _closet)_ from the moldy room they might as well call a living room, and clears his throat loudly.

The two of them are seated on the floor together, cross-legged and sitting knee-to-knee. It’s absurdly friendly, like they’ve known each other for far longer than they have.

(There are even more candles in here - why is everything so goddamn _dark?)_

“Stay up as long as you kids fucking want,” Alex spits, jaw tight. “Broke my pen. Papers aren’t getting delivered anytime soon.”

Jay’s face falls, and he opens his mouth to protest or offer comfort or _something,_ but Alex doesn’t hear it. He doesn’t _want_ to hear it. He simply turns back into the dark hole of his little closet, door shutting behind him with a pointed snap. He flops back down into his chair and lets his head drop onto the surface of the desk. Ink seeps into his sleeves, staining them black. Staining everything black. It pools over the wood surface, black and inescapable, spreading in a dark inflorescence of black against brown. The fumes are dizzying, more so than usual, but Alex couldn’t give a damn if he tried. 

He doesn’t feel right.

He thinks he can feel the grip of something curling over his shoulder, the chill touch permeating the thickness of his coat.

“Lemme ‘lone,” he mumbles, expecting it to be Jay.

Why is he so _tired._

(the fingers are long, aquiline, sinking into his chest, pushing, threatening to tear into the skin)

(the room shudders around him -)

He’s alone again.

He might as well have never felt the hand at all.


	7. Bright

Tim’s used to being cold, wet, hungry, all the joyous feelings that make a man regret leaving home.

(He never left home. He was taken, institutionalized, hidden away, but the sentiment remains the same.)

He’s not used to being warm, fed, and cared for. 

(By “warm,” he means “less cold than usual,” and by “fed,” he means “not starving like always,” and by “cared for,” he means “there are people here and they’re acknowledging him and talking to him and he has no idea how he’s supposed to respond,” but to Tim that’s a whole world above what he’s spent 20-odd years of his life growing accustomed to.)

He even has a _bed._

(A threadbare cot.)

(But it has _blankets.)_

It’s been weeks since he agreed to be Kralie’s strongarm, in a loose definition of the term. He’s found that he’s well-suited to the task. He doesn’t ask questions, just shifts the crates that need shifting, drops the oddly shaped packages in the bizarre locations, does what he’s told. Kralie and Tim have precisely one thing in common, that being their mutual dislike of one another, but they’ve reached - an _understanding._

It’s crossed his mind that Kralie secretly likes how Tim works. The two men have actually been getting along, even if Tim’s own definition of the phrase doesn’t really extend beyond _‘not_ biting each other’s heads off every chance they get,’ and it’s actually been sort of - dare Tim say it?

Nice?

The work is a distraction from the numbing bite of winter. The cold has made it harder to cross the ice-slippery streets in the mornings, and though Tim would be hard-pressed to admit it, he worries about Jay. He _hates_ that he worries about the guy, because really, he doesn’t _know_ him all that well and worrying about Jay seems to be much more Alex’s department. Territory. Whatever.

(Because Alex _is_ territorial, glaring fiercely at Tim when he expresses the slightest interest in Jay’s personal life. Must be the whole ‘caretaker’ vibe Tim picks up from him.)

But still. Worrying. It’s what Tim does. It doesn’t help that the first time he met Jay he was very closely acquainted with his too-big, too-sad, too-inquisitive eyes that made him look oh-so-pitiful and in need of a good hug.

(A hug from someone who is Not Tim, this much has been decided.)

Every morning Alex rouses Jay and Tim early, sends Jay off with his bundle of flimsy papers. And Tim worries. He worries Jay won’t come back one night, that one day his foot will skid on the ice and make him slip and he’ll hit his head in just the right way and they’ll find him the next morning, frozen fast to the street with his neck all twisted about in the wrong shape and eyes bulging and staring - 

_Easy there, Tim._

Someone might think he’s morbid or something.

Tim has long since decided that he loathes his mind. It’s fractured and useless and sometimes the horrid nightmares bleed into his waking moments, causing him to fret and fear over stupid, _stupid_ things.

Things like dying.

Tim doesn’t know why he _cares,_ really, because he shouldn’t. Didn’t. Doesn’t. These people are a temporary employer and a temporary co-worker, not a family.

 _(Family,_ Tim scoffs to himself. As if he’s ever had that, really. The word is all but meaningless to him.)

There are things more important to worry about, like the newspapers, and the strange codes that have begun to leak into the cheap ink, codes that Alex swears he’s never put there, gripes that Jay and Tim are seeing just because they’re looking for trouble.

Which is absolutely _not_ true. Tim doesn’t _look_ for trouble, he thinks to himself indignantly. It more or less looks for _him,_ and latches on and drains his ability to deal with it accordingly, like some toxic, hyper-persistent leech.

Tim’s tried to work out the codes himself, but he never learned to read very quickly - it takes him a few minutes to work out which letter is which - and is quite hopeless when it comes to numbers. There’s a reason he’s always been the mindless muscle. That’s easy for him. That’s something he knows.

The days are a bore and the nights are full of icy breath sticking in his lungs, but Tim doesn’t mind it, because at least he’s getting paid, albeit in wads of crinkled cash resentfully shoved into his palm at the end of each week. And, on good days, Alex invites him and Jay to sample the goods. Those are the best nights, the almost-but-not-quite carefree ones. The ones where it’s easy to forget they’re poor and illegal and hated, because at least they’re poor and illegal and hated with whiskey.

The streets are always empty at this hour, the thick sheen of ice causing the three of them to slide haphazardly about as they make their way back - well. Back home. Tim’s begun to call it that, in a way, and it doesn’t feel too wrong to do so. It _is_ home in a sense, even if it’s temporary. He almost feels safe there.

Tim doesn’t worry about his own idiosyncrasies or odd definitions of normal words like ‘home’ or ‘family’ right now, or if Alex hates his guts, because he and Jay both are really fucking smashed.

 _Really_ fucking smashed.

Tim almost _laughs._ It’s funny seeing Jay smile, genuinely and freely, even if it is in that not altogether _there_ way that happens when people are completely sloshed. But for once Jay is loud and drunk and happy and he and Alex are holding hands while he’s singing some off-key, indistinct song. In fact, he’s bellowing the song - if it can be called that - into the darkened, deserted streets at the top of his lungs.

Tim lingers behind them. Alex isn’t _quite_ so thoroughly hammered as they are, but it’s clear by the wobble in his step and the way he occasionally steadies himself on Jay’s shoulder that he’s not as sober as he swears he is either.

_“I’m_ not the shortest,” Jay complains loudly when Alex interrupts his serenade. _“Tim_ is. Look,” he slurs, grabbing Tim’s wrist and dragging him up to compare. Oddly enough, Tim lets him do it, so startled by the abrupt contact that he doesn’t resist. Ordinarily he’d jerk his hand away, hissing at Jay to _watch what he’s doing,_ but right now the alcohol is bubbling away nicely in his head, its calm intoxication smoothing his reactionary jerk into little more than a twitch. He knows Jay isn’t the sort to hurt him. He’s too goddamn skinny for it. 

He tries to shake his head to clear it, but the whiskey has made him slow and stupid and careless. So he plays along. 

“You’re right.” Alex’s voice is bright and clear compared to Jay’s thick diction, and he even smirks at Tim in a way that isn’t quite as bitter and mocking as usual. “Tim _is_ shorter.” 

“We’re not short,” Tim growls playfully, and holy fuck is he _smiling? “You’re_ just freakishly _tall.”_

For an instant his heart thuds in his chest in that ‘oh shit’ fashion as the adrenaline rushes to his brain, and he worries he’s said something wrong. But Alex just snickers and shakes his head, walking on. The alcohol has made him sluggish and easy as well. 

Tim finds he doesn’t mind at all. 

“No, wait,” Jay mumbles, and he starts scrambling onto Tim’s shoulders. 

Tim goes rigid. 

Grasping his wrist is one thing. _Climbing_ on him is _quite another, thanks._

For a terrible second Tim wants to buck like a raging horse, fling Jay to the ground, grab him and shake him and demand to know _what the hell is wrong with him._

But Jay is unexpectedly gentle, as intoxicated and clumsy as he is. He drapes his legs around either side of Tim’s neck until he’s sitting on Tim’s shoulders, and Tim instinctively wraps his arms around those scrawny, underfed legs to steady the smaller man. 

“Look!” Jay declares triumphantly, and Tim can’t see his face but he’s positive it has an outrageous grin plastered all over it. _“Now_ we’re taller!” 

The feeling of Jay perching confidently - oh so rare, these bursts of bona fide high self-esteem - on Tim’s shoulders, proud as he boasts over their combined height, sends a shiver of amusement down Tim’s spine. 

Maybe he doesn’t care quite so much about the touching. 

Alex turns around and sees them, their self-made and extremely tanked human tower perilously teetering this way and that, and bursts out laughing. Tim half-grins, the tiny upward tick of one side of his mouth. They are, indeed, taller than him now. 

Alex shoves them gently, chuckling at Jay’s newfound cockiness, but it’s enough to send them both toppling over into the blanketed snow. They roll over and over in the soaking whiteness, laughing carelessly, because they’re young and drunk and stupid, and why shouldn’t they enjoy the bliss and mindlessness of not caring every once and a while? 

Tim’s shirt and jacket are drenched, he’s shivering uncontrollably, but _fuck it_ \- he’s happy. Worries about codes and papers and illegal exchanges can wait, Tim decides. He rolls to his feet, grasps Jay’s hand and pulls him up as well, their shoulders still shaking with mirth. 

They’re all laughing. All of them, even scowling and empty Tim. 

Well, maybe he’s not so very empty after all. 

\--- 

Of course, the hangover the next morning begs to fucking differ. 

Tim stumbles out of his room - he has a room! It’s his! A tiny closet he can sleep in! Somehow his excitement has dampened in between the waves of nausea curdling in his abdomen - in search for something cold to press against his throbbing temples. 

Instead he discovers Alex draping his long coat over Jay’s tiny curled form as the smaller man slumbers on the couch, asleep and therefore still peaceful. Untouched by the pain of headaches and hangovers, at least thus far. Alex slides his hand into one of Jay’s limp ones, sits at the foot of the couch, and watches. His face is uncharacteristically tender, smooth despite the gaunt, sleepless hollows in his cheeks and rough days-old stubble. 

Tim looks away, unnerved. He doesn’t know what to think, hesitant to define Alex and Jay’s relationship. There _is_ the whole ‘caretaker’ vibe he gets from Alex, not to mention how fiercely devoted Jay is to the man, but at the same time there’s something - gentler? 

Tim doesn’t understand it, and makes no effort to. People in general are somewhat beyond his area of expertise. He busies himself with looking for that cold something to press against his forehead. At last he settles for wrapping an old rag around a chunk of ice he finds scattered on the street just outside, probably kicked up by their drunken escapades the night before. Tim grits his teeth at the increase of temporal pressure as he stoops to pick it up. The pounding in his head intensifies. 

And just like that, Tim thinks wryly, he’s back to his normal ungrateful self. 

When he returns, Alex has moved from Jay’s side, instead preoccupying himself with working on the latest batch of newspapers, scratching out the newest edition in his cobwebbed scrawl that Jay can, by some untold miracle, decipher. 

Tim acknowledges Alex with a curt nod and he receives one in lieu of an early morning greeting. Then Tim shuts himself in his room to privately pity Jay for having to brave the early morning cold with a sheaf of poorly made newspapers in addition to suffering through his own inevitable post-alcoholic discomfort. 

He likes the feeling of home - well, _sort_ of - this place exhibits, worn down and dilapidated and chilly as it is. He’s unused to company. Hell, he’s unused to having a place to return to every night without worrying about being unceremoniously evicted by another wave of fellow squatters. And as surly and uncooperative as Alex can be, Tim doesn’t _mind_ the other man, not terribly. Sure, they don’t ever really see eye to eye, but they’re both men of few words, and Tim feels Alex appreciates that part of him on some level. It doesn’t help that Alex’s disposition generally has three settings, much like heated water: tepid, simmering, and boiling, with the former reserved solely for his interactions with Jay. 

But they can coexist. They can tolerate each other’s presence. And for now, that’s enough for Tim. He has a bed, food, and perhaps not _friends,_ really, but _people,_ people who can tolerate him at the very least. He can deal with Alex, temper shifts and all. 

As much of an asshole the guy can be, Alex really isn’t as bad as Tim formerly believed. He can be viciously, ruthlessly pragmatic, but he does have one humanizing vulnerability. 

Jay. 

There’s no way Tim _can’t_ have picked up on the way they act around each other, or the way the furrows on Alex’s brow smooth whenever Jay pipes up, or how the laugh lines creep up to crinkle around his eyes when he smirks at one Jay’s stupid jokes, his normally icy veneer dissolving into something younger, softer, and much more - _human._

Soulless, distant Alex has a heart after all, it seems, even if Jay is where he keeps it. That counts for something. 

It’s obvious that aloof, reserved Alex cares about Jay to some unknown extent, and that warms Tim to him tremendously. 

And when did he ever stop thinking of him as ‘Kralie,’ anyway?” 


	8. Fleece

It takes Jay nearly an entire week to work up the courage to talk to Tim.

He grows increasingly stressed with each passing day, knowing the fast-approaching date all too well. The dreary streets begin to glow with something that could be called hope; street lamps are draped with thick wreaths, ribbons adorning the green rings while carolers wander from door to door, singing and asking for payment in exchange for their time. Even in misery does there lurk optimism, open and shameless.

(Alex slams the door in the face of one particularly determined group, hissing that they’re a bunch of scrounging moles and should go poking around somewhere else for a meal.)

When Jay does manage to ask him, it’s while Tim’s on the job, sequestered in the basement, post-dusk and post-paper delivery. It’s nothing big. It’s just the matter of Jay marshaling his nerves to up and _saying_ it while Tim tries to stack the boxes full of illegal god-knows-what. He doesn’t want to disturb him, but - 

“It’s almost the twenty-fifth, and I know we’ve been busy - ”

“Well, you’re not wrong,” Tim grunts as he perches a particularly heavy crate onto the steadily forming ziggurat of accumulated goods. Jay nervously kicks his legs back and forth against the box he’s taken up as his perch, not quite looking the other man in the eye.

“Let me finish,” he says, overtly conscious of the cracking of his voice. He sees the fluttering ghost of a smirk that twitches at the corners of Tim’s mouth and scowls. “It’s almost Christmas. And I want to do something, uh. Holiday-ish.”

“The word you’re looking for is ‘festive’,” Tim teases before standing upright, exhaling long and slow as he stretches arms over his head. “I’m not saying I wouldn’t want to, but I really just don’t see the _how.”_

“I know! I know,” Jay promises, nodding fiercely. “Why d’you think I took so long to _say_ anything? It’s not necessarily anything to do with decorations or anything big or even a tree - it’s something small.”

Tim crosses his arms, eyeing the other man warily. Jay feels himself shrink slightly under the appraising stare despite himself.

“Something tells me it’s not as small as you think.”

Jay hesitates before nodding again, cautious and slow.

“I wanna get Alex that scarf I caught him looking at down the way, at that well-to-do shop.”

He catches the subtle widening of Tim’s eyes, the uncomfortable stretching of the silence into thinning indecision.

“I couldn’t get him anything last year!” Jay blurts out defensively, and _god_ but he hates the pitch of his voice, high enough for him to loathe how it sounds like a whine. “I tried really hard and - and all the money had to go to food, so it was like Christmas wasn’t even a _thing._ I don’t want that for him this year. I want him to be happy.”

Jay wilts back into himself, digging a nail into the weakening fabric of his trousers. He could get new pants, or a shirt that actually fits, but - _Alex._ He needs to see him smile on Christmas this year. He needs that more than a new piece of clothing.

Tim looks as though he’d say otherwise, judging by his dubious frown.

“Jay, I don’t wanna tell you no,” he says slowly. Jay uncoils from the box, getting to his feet, his stance firm, resolute. He can see the ‘oh god no’ lurking warily behind Tim’s nervous look, the wavering of his defenses before he folds.

“Please,” says Jay, even and earnest. He’s laying it on thick, god he _knows_ it, but he’s so close to getting a yes he can taste it. “You’ve seen how miserable Alex has been. It’s just this once. I’ll use most of my money, I just need half your last pay, that’s _it,_ I - ”

Tim’s arms fly up in surrender.

“Shut up, I’m not taking all of your money,” he huffs, arms folding again. He chews the inside of his cheek and regards the other man with narrowed eyes. “You can pay half. We’re going half. That’s it.”

Though Jay has to admit that some of the begging was a bit overboard, the gratitude that pulls his mouth into a wide grin is utterly sincere.

“You’re the best,” he says, emphatic and earnest. Tim shoves him away gently, the smile straining at the edges of lips.

“Keep telling me that,” he jokes, rolling his eyes as he fishes an unfinished stub of a cigarette from his pocket. He lights it up and waves the match out with more force than necessary. “I might start to believe you.”

\---

Jay doesn’t think he’s seen anything more peculiar in his life. So much color and life. People with rosy cheeks and well-fed bodies. A well-kept store, the displays bright and pristine.

As a result, Jay trembles. 

He wanders through the room, hands crammed into his pockets to keep from sullying the spotless merchandise. He doesn’t belong there, him, a little vagrant without a penny to his name.

“Jay. Look _up,”_ Tim’s voice chides behind him. “You’re gonna get us kicked out. People’ll think you’re up to something.”

Jay pulls his head up begrudgingly, resisting the urge to grumble under his breath, and stares rigidly ahead. If he meets the eye of anyone here, anyone _worthwhile_ and _rich_ and _important,_ he has no idea what he might see. He’s sure he doesn’t _want_ to know what might be lingering in their collective gaze.

“I feel like everyone’s staring,” says Jay.

“Of course they are,” Tim says brusquely. “And once you get _used_ to the fact that people are always gonna stare, it’s not gonna bother you.”

“I just wanna get the scarf and get outta here,” Jay mutters, hurrying ahead of Tim when he spots the scarf he’s seen displayed in the window for the past week. He resists the urge to run his fingers over the cloth, heart juddering at the thought of being yelled at for playing with the goods. “This one, right here.”

Tim obligingly follows to take a closer look, humming appreciatively when he spots the strip of vibrant red.

“You got good taste. That’d keep him warm for hours,” he muses.

Jay grins, a smile that quickly fades the moment Tim turns and raises his voice, calling across the shop. “Hey! We’d like to make a purchase over here.”

Immediately Jay tries to shrink as far back against the wall as space will allow.

“Just _go to the front,”_ he mumbles, mortified. “It’ll just bother him, bringing him over here - ”

“No,” Tim says firmly. “Do you see anyone else doing that? Everyone here calls the shopkeeper over for help.”

“B-but - ”

It’s too late by the time the shopkeeper makes his way over, arms folded, one brow arched in a decidedly unimpressed fashion. Indeed, he couldn’t look more disgusted by Tim’s outright demand for attention if he tried.

“What is it you were looking at, sir?” he asks. Jay bristles beneath his cap, gritting his teeth at the way the man draws out the word ‘sir’ in a tone that would imply a seething lack of respect beneath his icy professional veneer.

“This scarf - and this hat, actually,” Tim answers coolly, ignoring the other man’s irritable look. A _hat,_ though - Jay watches Tim nod at a simple bowler hat, the band around it as brilliantly red as the scarf, and feels his insides curl; are they going to have enough money for _both?_

“Oh.” The shopkeeper’s expression resolves into one of weary disbelief. “Those _particular_ items cost - ”

“I can read,” Tim says shortly, digging into his pockets for a handful of bills. He flicks through them, pointedly if wordlessly ticking off the price of both objects, and neatly hands the stack of bills over to the shopkeeper with a silent, restrained satisfaction. 

Jay has to bite down another grin. He doesn’t think he’s ever seen anyone look so startled and so _scandalized_ in his life.

“A-ah,” the shopkeeper says, clearly trying to recover his proverbial footing. “Yes. Let me fetch you two a bag. Excuse me.”

Jay waits until he’s out of earshot before batting at Tim’s elbow, shoulders shuddering with a suppressed snicker.

“Did you see his _face?”_

“I did.” Tim smirks, deftly warding away Jay’s hand as it darts out to swat him again. “Just ‘cause we’re not running around in top hats and full wallets, it doesn’t mean we don’t belong here. Gotta let people know that. I certainly dealt with it long enough.”

He doesn’t clarify further. Jay doesn’t ask him to. 

“Thank you,” says Jay.

Tim smiles faintly.

It suits him.

“The hat, though, who’s that for?” Jay asks, watching the shopkeeper weave his way through the room, bag in hand. Tim’s smile falters, his expression sheepish.

“It’s my present. For Alex. The scarf is yours - I figured, since, y’know, he’s been nice enough to get me this job and. Y’know.”

He trails off, like he can’t bear to say another nice word about the man.

Jay leaves it where it is. He’s too busy enjoying the warmth of knowing his two favorite people in world finally seem to be getting along.


	9. Pieces

Things have been _good,_ almost, which doesn’t feel quite right to think, though it’s not altogether unwelcome. It’s just that Alex isn’t all that _used_ to it. Even he and Tim have fallen into a begrudgingly respectful workman’s relationship, and Jay hasn’t looked _quite_ so thin and peaky when he sets off in the mornings, and it’s not unpleasant.

The winter air might sting in their lungs everytime they set outside, but Alex takes secret enjoyment in the way Jay’s eyes light up when he sees the candles in the windows, the skinny cut-up fir trees strung with red ribbons, despite the thick snowdrifts that lie piled about the frozen cobbles and stuttering streetlamps. The town might be full of impoverished, jobless, miserable, desperate souls, but it seems that even desperate souls will do their utmost to enjoy Christmas. As much as they can, anyway.

Alex doesn’t mind the celebration. Business always spikes this time of year. The money left for them is no longer tainted with the hollowness of despair, but the bright spark of tentative cheer. For once the bottle is a celebration and not a shut-off valve.

Alex never did keep track of the days, not when they all bleed together so easily, but he makes sure to set aside a bottle of some of their finer product for the occasion.

So it happens that he’s surprised when he tries to roll Jay awake one morning, and the smaller man only grumbles and bats him away.

“Sschrmblm,” he mumbles into the threadbare pillow.

“What?” Alex asks. He dashes a hand at the darkened circles beneath his eyes and his face stretches into a yawn. His sleep last night was clouded with nightmares, fitful as always, and he does _not_ have time for this.

“‘S Christmas,” Jay repeats, much clearer as he sits up. “Alex, it’s _Christmas.”_

“It’s - ” Alex blinks rapidly a few times as he processes this new and unanticipated information. “Huh.”

Then he sees Jay’s face, expression open and hopeful, and he knows exactly what _that ___look means. He almost snaps at Jay, _no, absolutely not,_ but the glimmer in his eyes gives him pause.

Oh, what the hell.

“Come on, then,” sighs Alex as he slouches out of the room. “No one’s gonna be out on the streets this hour, ‘specially today.”

Jay pads after him, suddenly full of the requisite energy to get himself up and about and into their makeshift kitchen. Alex almost beams. He can’t _not_ adore the look on the other man’s face, his fascination with the little things, the way he can find a childlike glee in almost anything, even a cold winter’s morning that will likely yield little more than usual.

Alex remembers the whiskey he has stashed away, but dismisses the idea until later. Jay’s full of clear-headed excitement now, and it wouldn’t do to dull that with drunken mindlessness until it becomes dark.

Jay rouses Tim and the three men proceed to scrounge whatever food they can for a Christmas breakfast. Alex is hesitant to put all of their food on the table at once, but _fuck it_ \- they’ve earned a break. They seldom encounter days of celebration, and this seems as good a time as any to enjoy a well-deserved rest from the hectic illegalities of their lives.

“What’re we doing today?” Jay asks from over their cobbled-together meal of bread and eggs - Tim isn’t a bad cook, Alex is startled and pleased to discover - and the question takes Alex entirely off guard.

“I, uh - ” he swallows a _very hot_ mouthful of eggs and starts coughing.

Jay makes as if to get up to assist him, but Alex holds up a hand, instead swigging some of his water to wash the blockage away.

“I’m fine,” he gasps, massaging his Adam’s apple. “Just - swallowed wrong.”

Jay nods and sinks back into his seat, but worry still darkens his features. Alex has to suppress an annoyed sigh. When has Jay ever found it necessary to worry about _him._ It’s always been the other way around.

“Well, actually,” Tim shoots Jay what he must have thought was a surreptitious glance. “We, uh. Jay and I, we. Uh.”

The man can’t spit it out, it seems.

Jay jumps up with a quiet “oh!” as if remembering his cue and scuttles out of the room, only to return with a package under arm - ‘package’ in the loosest sense of the term, really, and even that is a generous assumption, because Alex isn’t sure if the bulky shape clumsily wrapped in old newspapers - _his_ old newspapers - quite qualifies.

When Jay plunks the package in his lap and sits back with a tight, nervous smile, the gesture is entirely unexpected but oddly - sweet? Jay is so _sincere_ as he sets the thing down in front of Alex with reverence, and his eyes are bright with such an obvious, infectious joy. Tim and Alex, moody bastards as they are, both can’t help but smile.

“I - ” Alex doesn’t know how to communicate how touched he is and still remain dignified. “Thank you.”

“Best open it before thanking us,” Tim advises cheerfully. Alex frowns momentarily at him - had he known?

He shakes his private suspicions aside and obliges. He tears the paper off gently to reveal a plush red scarf, and just beneath it a fine bowler hat bound with matching red ribbon. His breath catches in his throat as he skims his hands over the smooth black exterior of the hat, runs his fingers through the woolly softness of the scarf.

He hadn’t expected this. _At all._

“Th-thank you,” he stammers again, voice drying in his throat. “I didn’t - this wasn’t - thank you.”

Tim smirks and inclines his head. “It was Jay’s idea.”

Tim’s thoughtfulness is even more unexpected, but no less welcome. Perhaps there’s hope for the man yet, Alex thinks, and his smile broadens.

“You _helped,”_ Jay argues playfully. “And the hat was all _you.”_ His attention returns to Alex, anxious. “You - do you like it?”

“Of course I do.” There’s a tight lump in Alex’s throat, and he doesn’t quite know why. He’s _happy,_ incredibly happy, more relaxed than he’s been in _years._

So why is there a heavy weight clenched in his stomach? 

“Thank you,” says Alex. “Both of you.”

Jay gets up to wrap Alex in a firm hug, burying his face in the taller man’s shoulder. Alex rubs his back gently, feeling the rapid _thud_ of his heartbeat. They’re warm and safe and happy for once in their lives, and Alex is grateful for that. He’s grateful for Tim’s unforeseen generosity and Jay’s earnest joy.

“In fact, uh.” Alex breaks away from the hug. “I have something for you two, too.”

It’s not _strictly_ true, as the bottle was just a coincidental convenience, but Alex feels guilty for not seeking out a specific gift for Jay, so he pulls the spare bottle of whiskey out and displays it proudly.

They get absolutely nothing done that day and Alex doesn’t care in the slightest. As the day fades to snowy night, Alex is now blissfully lost in the fine mist of the whiskey, sprawled happily on the couch with Jay reclining against him. Tim is...elsewhere. Alex hasn’t been keeping track, nor thinking much of him at all, truthfully. How could he, when there’s a warm distraction lying on top of him, grinning languidly?

“It’s been a long time since I last saw you like this.”

“Oh?” Alex says nonchalantly, head elsewhere. Probably in the drink that’s flooding his system. He hums to himself, sleepy and content. The man could have stayed like that, if Jay hadn’t gripped his wrist then to catch his attention. He looks at him in mild surprise, at his easy grin.

(and just like that, Alex Kralie _melts,_ because he sees the guy he kissed for the first time under the light of a streetlamp, his hand on the small of his back as he trembles from the cold.)

“I miss your laugh,” Jay says softly, stroking along the inside of Alex’s arm. His gentle touch is more intoxicating than anything Alex has ever sold in a bottle. Sometimes Alex thinks that gentleness is something that doesn’t exist in his world, not anymore.

But occasionally Jay will go out of his way to prove him wrong.

“There’s not been much to laugh about,” Alex reminds him, though not unkindly. He slides his arm from the boy’s grip and takes his hand into his own, cradling his bony fingers. “You know how things are.”

“I’ve still missed it.”

Jay’s hand shakes in his, like he’s grown unused to his touch. He has half a mind to change that. But for now, he accepts the chance to run his hand up his arm, his shoulder, all the way to his jaw. He sighs and leans into his palm, eyes closing contently.

“Sometimes I worry you’ll stop loving me,” he confesses, reaching to cover Alex’s hand with his own. His brow creases with a painful memory, surely one that he has already shared with Alex, but the other man’s blood would still boil to hear of it. “It was easy for my parents to stop, so I just - I can’t help it. But when you’re like that, when you look at me like you did tonight - ”

“That’d never happen,” Alex cuts him off, taking his face in both hands. Jay’s eyes open, big and blue and just short of hypnotizing. The flush upon Alex’s face isn’t entirely from the whiskey anymore. “When I took you in and we started this business together? I knew it was a risk, but I did it for you.”

Jay’s face at that, it’s worth a hundred years of labor at a desk with ink staining every possible surface.

It’s too much. He wants to say more but he knows it can’t be said in words. Holding out his arms, Jay quickly gets the message and leaps up into his arms, legs curling around his waist and hands at the back of his neck. Jay’s mouth is on his before he can think of a proper place for them to take this, and he doesn’t have the heart to break it off.

Thank fuck for the hall closet.


	10. Open

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special warning: This chapter contains a discussion of numerous issues that may hit hard for certain readers. There is internalized homophobia, acephobia, transphobia, self-loathing, mentions of parental abuse, and references to self-harm and unsafe methods of binding, which I do not recommend under any circumstances.

Of course Tim knows that Alex _cares_ about Jay. That much had been obvious from the start, the way Alex slugged him for so much as _talking_ to the man. Today in particular, he might’ve envied their closeness a little. There are clearly years of history between them, history of a nature he can’t completely discern, and no matter how often he and Jay and Alex can talk and laugh and get drunk and grow more comfortable around one another, Tim knows he’ll never have the same kind of intimacy the two of them have. He just doesn’t know what to do with the fact that, on more than one occasion, he’s caught Jay looking at Alex with an expression he could best describe as _dreamy._

Actually, maybe that’s a pretty accurate description.

Every time Tim thinks he has their odd relationship figured out, he discovers some new piece of information that sends him reeling. Alex is gruff with the man, sure, but there’s always the hint of a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth when Jay turns his back, when he thinks no one sees him looking fondly at the guy. It’s odd seeing Alex’s face devoid of its usual scowl.

Then Tim stumbles upon a new bit of context completely by accident, and everything suddenly makes sense.

He doesn’t _mean_ to interrupt them. He was honestly planning on just poking around in search of any more food, but he opens the closet door to find that there are two people already inside it, pressing up against one another with Jay’s arms thrown up and over Alex’s neck and Jay’s face pushing at Alex’s face and _oh my god_ why is Tim still here?

Tim stammers out an apology and blunders clumsily out and trips over his own feet and lands on the ground and gets back up again and he can actually _feel_ Jay and Alex’s startled stares burning into his back and he just really does not know how to react to this brand new information because, honestly, he doesn’t know why the thought of the two of them being, well, _being_ never crossed his mind before because looking back, it is really fucking obvious and _well, duh of course_ Jay is going to look at Alex all fucking _dreamy._

He gets out and staggers into his own room breathing hard, because _holy shit_ he does not know how to process this this information. Immediately Tim starts pacing, back and forth, circles, fucking figure eights. What does he even _do?_

He should have figured this out. It’s just so damn _obvious._

They’re completely head over heels in love with each other. 

No _wonder _Alex gets so protective of the damn guy. No _wonder_ Jay will do quite literally anything for him. No _wonder_ they’re working together to scrounge up money to find a house someplace, someplace where they won’t be bothered by the scowling or the intolerant.__

__No fucking _shit.__ _

__But Tim’s still shaking. He’s shaking and he doesn’t know how to explain it, because _he_ knows what he is and he knows how seeing other people, couples, makes him _feel,_ all broken and gutted inside. It’s difficult to explain the _lack_ of something, like the lack of _wanting.__ _

__For Jay and Alex it’s different. It’s a forbidden want, the sort of want that people in tall hats and fancy suits frown upon because they have some weird skewed sense of morality and judgement that makes them feel they can decide what is _right_ and what is _wrong_ and Jay and Alex would be put in the _wrong_ category, just like Tim, and now he wants to hit something._ _

__He wants to hurt._ _

__But he’s past that now._ _

__He doesn’t need to hurt to feel, not anymore. He ignores the urge. Barely, he ignores it._ _

__These people are _like_ Tim, sort of. They’re outlawed in the eyes of society, Broken Things that Must Be Fixed. Tim knows how that feels. He knows how being asked, over and over, “but _why?”_ feels, and not having an answer._ _

__Tim doesn’t particularly _like_ talking about it. People don’t - _get_ it, the _lack_ of something. Or they think he’s Wrong. That was part of the reason for the hospitals and pills, after all. The doctors figured, always, that there was something Wrong With Him and he Needed To Be Fixed. They would ask him, invade his head with terrible questions, like “doesn’t he ever think about it though” and “but wouldn’t he like to settle down with a wife and children one day” or telling him things about how “the right person” would come along, like some sort of magical cure to his imaginary affliction._ _

__(There were real afflictions, yes, but there weren’t fixes for those. Tim wishes the doctors had spent more time looking for ways to help his head instead of why he wasn’t interested in kissing or fucking or doing things he doesn’t care to think about.)_ _

__But now this whole revelation about Jay and Alex, well - everything makes _sense._ It all snaps together, all the clues and long looks and fierce protectiveness toward one another._ _

__“Tim?”_ _

__Tim looks up, and Jay is standing in the doorway. He’s looking at the floor, cheeks red, one hand hooked around his shoulder. Anxious._ _

__“Hey, it’s all good,” Tim says quickly. “You and Alex - I should’ve figured it out.”_ _

__“No, I mean, uh. Um.” Jay looks at the ceiling now, suddenly finding the pits and gashes in the roof infinitely more interesting. “We should’ve told you. I guess.”_ _

__“I can get it if you didn’t want to.” Tim shrugs. “People are, y’know.”_ _

__Jay actually smiles a bit at that, fleeting and tentative. “Yeah.”_ _

__Silence._ _

__It stretches thin, until Tim has to blurt through it._ _

__“So, uh. How long have you and him…?”_ _

__“Since he found me.”_ _

__“Found you?”_ _

__“Yeah. Well, uh. There’s. Um. A story.” Jay sits down cross-legged on the ground and finally meets Tim’s gaze, wide-eyed and pleading. The look reminds Tim so intensely of the first day he begged him to buy a newspaper that he can’t help but comply. He sits down across from him and prepares to listen._ _

__“It was, uh. My name,” Jay starts hesitantly. Tim frowns, confused, but doesn’t interrupt. Jay looks back the ground, props his chin up on his knees, curls his arms around them. He shrinks, nervous._ _

__Tim can’t blame him._ _

__“My name,” Jay repeats. “It was, uh. It wasn’t me? It was, um, a, a...well. It. I. Wasn’t. I wasn’t seen as...as I am now. I was seen as, uh, well. I was. I.”_ _

__The poor man shakes and stammers, he’s so nervous. Tim wants to tell him that it’ll be fine, he’s the _furthest from judging right now_ because of how damn _miserable_ Jay looks. This fragment of his past looks to be extremely painful, and here Jay is, brave enough to open up._ _

__“I wasn’t seen - like I am now. I wasn’t seen as a, uh, a. I wasn’t seen as a _guy.”__ _

__“You…” Tim’s brow knits in confusion again. “You, uh...oh. _Oh.”__ _

__“That’s why I, uh.” Jay gestures at his upper chest area, at the place where Tim’s glimpsed bandages, and now their meaning becomes clear._ _

__“And then - my parents found out.” Jay smiles again, but it’s an expression makes Tim’s heart hurt. It’s has none of the timid warmth of Jay’s usual honest, friendly smiles. It’s bitter and self-mocking and hard-edged. “And I’ve been on the streets ever since. When people find out, they don’t, um. They don’t usually take it too well.”_ _

__“But then you found Alex.”_ _

__“But then I found Alex.” And Jay’s face _transforms._ His face gets distant and open and warm and the smile broadens from its horrible sardonic parody of itself to earnest joy. “And he didn’t care. He said we’d look after each other, find enough money to buy a house far away from the people who’d hurt us or throw us out.”_ _

__“Alex understood,” Tim mutters, and he understands too. Jay nods._ _

__“He’s more or less had the same. His whole life.”_ _

__“And that’s why there’s - all this?” Tim gestures vaguely at the building. “The underground business, the dealing - to get away?”_ _

__“To be _safe.”_ A flicker of fear arrests Jay’s happy expression for an instant. “You’re not gonna - I mean, you _get_ it, don’t you?”_ _

__For an instant Tim is mildly offended that Jay would think he wouldn’t, but he remembers the pit of fear that comes with admitting these sorts of things, knows how people generally react to hearing news like this. It doesn’t help that being kicked out onto the streets seems to be the world’s go-to reaction._ _

__“Of course.” Tim takes a deep breath. His turn. “I mean, I’ve - spent most of my life in, you know, a hospital, yeah? And, well, it, uh. It wasn’t just for mental stuff.”_ _

__It’s Jay’s turn to look puzzled. “What do you - ?”_ _

__“I didn’t - _feel._ Not the way people thought I should? I wasn’t _interested_ in things. In - people, in doing, y’know, anything with them. The doctors thought it was medical. They said there was something wrong with me, that I wasn’t normal. But they didn’t _get_ it. It’s not - well, _just_ physical. There’s just nothing _here.”_ Tim taps his head. “I’ve never wanted it. I’ve never been curious or anything.”_ _

__“They put you in a hospital for that?” Jay asks. He sounds so genuinely bewildered by this that a smile quirks at one side of Tim’s mouth._ _

__“Well, that definitely didn’t help. I’m over it _now.”__ _

__Tim doesn’t know exactly how to pursue the topic, so he doesn’t. The two leave themselves to their own thoughts for a minute. Finally Jay pipes up._ _

__“We’re just a lovely little band of misfits, aren’t we?” he mutters sarcastically._ _

__“Hey, you’re the first person to actually, you know - _listen._ And not find me weird. Unless you do. In which case - ”_ _

__“Of course not!” Alarm flashes through Jay’s eyes. “We’re not the ones who’re messed up. The whole world is, and all we gotta do is, uh. Well, find someplace where they can’t bother us.”_ _

__“Yeah.” Tim is smiling in full now, damn it. The weight of fear is gone from the pit in his chest. He’s not alone, really, anymore._ _

__“You know,” Jay mumbles, and he breaks gaze to look at the floor. The red flush creeps back into his cheeks. “Once we get the money and everything’s settled, you could- I mean, I’d have to ask Alex and all, but you could probably, uh. Well, only if you wanted to. You could, maybe, just, uh…live with us?”_ _

__The roundabout question takes Tim aback and a hard lump settles in his throat. He hasn’t expected this, and he’s touched._ _

__“Thanks,” he manages, and he thinks his voice breaks a little as he says it but he doesn’t care. “I’d like that.”_ _

__Jay nods and gets up stiffly. He has that oh-god-it’s-finally-over look to him that comes with removing the weight of stress from not-telling, and Tim can’t blame him. He’s feeling it too. Jay retreats from Tim’s room, leaving the other man to automatically reach for his packet of cigarettes. He considers one of them, then shoves the pack back into his pocket instead. He doesn’t need stress relief right now._ _

__In fact, he doesn’t think he’s ever felt happier._ _


	11. Red

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains a special warning for heavy dissociation, severe mental distress, mental/emotional manipulation, and gun violence.

One minute Alex’s arm is hooked over Jay’s neck, the both of them blissfully lost in each other, and the next the closet door is banging open and Tim is standing there agape, like he’s _surprised_ or something, and then he’s gone blundering off to his own room and Jay’s tearing out of the closet after him, leaving Alex alone, breathing hard, unsated.

Jay runs off to Tim’s side. Of _course._

Things didn’t used to be like this, Alex fumes to himself as his head drops back to thunk dully against the closet wall. They used to be close. They always chose one another. They took _care_ of each other.

Now Jay has Tim, and Tim has Jay, and it’s all just fucking _perfect_ for them, so they can laugh and snicker and tell wacky stories about horses and dogs with newspapers and have a grand old good old time.

And Alex?

Well, who gives a damn about Alex anymore? 

He snorts and softly and scuffs one hand over his weary face, where the ragged stubble of several days’ growth has begun to develop into a rough beard, then passes it through his mussed hair to smooth it down. He can still feel the places where Jay’s fingers gripped the thick softness with a strength that didn’t suit his skinny frame. Now the sensation is fading, the warm musty smell of Jay is fading, the wicked euphoria that sprang from their shared secret has been defiled, and everything that Alex previously loved about their life together has begun to slowly slip away.

He wants to seize the memory of their old life with both hands, clutch it with all of his strength, keep everything from spiraling out of his reach, but Alex knows it’s useless. He’s losing Jay, just like he loses everything else, and there’s nothing he can do about it.

Alex’s hands ball into fists. He grinds them against the opposite wall in his seething frustration, fighting the wave of helplessness that’s threatening to overcome him.

_Helplessness._

Alex knows how to control, maneuver, operate. He knows how to puppeteer the droves of desperate souls in this crumbling city, in this dying world, tailor their wishes to suit his.

He doesn’t _get_ fucking _helpless._

(Except he does, he knows he knows he does, and he knows the feeling all too well.) 

And there’s no feeling in the entire world he loathes more. 

Jay is _his,_ damn it, and now Tim has taken him. Jay is Alex’s beacon and _they both know it;_ Jay has always been Alex’s guidance for when things got too hard or Alex got too angry. Jay has that _way_ to him, that hidden urge to help others whenever he can. He’s the gentle to Alex’s unyielding harshness, simultaneously the cool to his burn-hot temper and the warmth to his icy detachment. He’s the compass, the anchor, whatever meaningless words Alex can pull from the air that mean _important,_ because he _is._

And now Alex is losing him.

Because of Tim.

Fucking _Tim._

The more Alex thinks about it, the more he decides that _that_ was when things started going wrong. Because of _Tim._ They took that selfish, sarcastic asshole in out of desperation, and now Alex is paying the price.

_Desperation._

Alex hates it, hates how they might excel at manipulating their endless supply of desperate souls, but no matter what they do, they will never be anything more than desperate souls themselves.

He squeezes his eyes shut, driving his fist even more furiously into the wall. He can feel dry splinters digging into his knuckles and the heel of his palm, but he doesn’t care. The pain sends fresh surges of righteous fury shuddering through him, and he savors the feeling. He hungrily submits to it. There’s blood in his tight fist now, running in thick drops between the clenched fingers.

It’s ecstasy.

Pale, skeletal hands creep into his mind. He welcomes them and their icy touch. He needs the numbness.

But the cold does not make him numb. It only causes the anger to spread, to suffuse his whole body with its tingling heat.

_you are always angry_

That’s right. He _is,_ isn’t he? Angry Alex, mad Alex, passionate, violent, _scary_ Alex.

_need release_

Yeah, he _does._ The wall can’t cut it any longer. There’s blood trickling down his wrist, soaking his coat sleeve. The redness taints his vision, his mind, everything. Everything except the pale hands and the cold, faceless face.

_release_

Yeah. Release.

_kill_

Yeah. That sounds about right.

He has a gun in his pocket, doesn’t he? Automatically, Alex reaches into the folds of his coat and pulls the weapon from it. The thing is cool and heavy in his hands. Smooth. He has to admire the handiwork. It _is_ beautiful, this deadly object. Even the bullets are dark and lovingly well-crafted.

Alex smiles. The gun slides perfectly into his hand

(the hand that is now perfectly gloved in scarlet)

Tim’s in the way, and Jay’s in the way, and they’re getting in the way of Alex’s happiness, but he’ll fix it. He’ll correct everything. The pale voice in his mind urges him to.

and everything will be. 

perfect.

(your feet are moving without your permission)

(it’s strange. but it doesn’t scare you. nothing scares you when you’re like this. your brain is like liquid, flowing and never stopping, pushing you on through the streets. your boots are cracked at the bottoms. numbness is setting in, but you’re used to the cold. like this, you’re invulnerable. the icy night might as well be nothing more than a faint breeze.)

(shadows stretch out before you, long, pointed, leading. you follow willingly, knowing they can only guide you to a good place. they’re going to help you. you find salvation in the dark shapes. they never leave you, they’re always there, they care, they want to help - )

(an empty street that once belonged to you is no longer that, not with this new trail of footprints in the snow.)

(it enrages you. red, hot, you see the anger behind your eyes, heated and glowing crimson.)

(you can’t even have this street to yourself, no. even complete strangers can’t let you have one. little. thing. of your own.)

(fucking. greedy.)

(the culprit freezes as you prowl behind him. your breath is heavy, your lungs freezing from the inside out, air clouding around your head. the shadows are jagged and jumping, twisting in an excited, feverish dance.)

(as if they know what is coming.)

(as if they know what you are about to do.)

(maybe they do. don’t they.)

“Sir? Are you all right?”

(he speaks. you cannot see his face in the dark.)

(it’s easier. he’s a part of the night like this. he’s not a person. he’s something in your way. an object.) 

(and you know how to take care of things that get in your way.)

(the gun is light in your hand, so light it might as well be a part of you. you lift it with the ease of a well-trained soldier, hardened by battle and blood upon his hands.)

_Bang._

(your ears ache at the sound, but you relish in it. _bang,_ your troubles are gone. _bang,_ they’re swept aside and bleeding out in the snow. _bang,_ you’re free, you’re finally free, fucking hell, you’re _free.)_

(the man hits the ground hard, gasping when his spine thumps against pavement. he scrabbles at his front, pawing through his coat. he begs you for answers.) 

(the rasp of his voice is unbearable.)

(you pull the trigger a second time because you _have to.)_

_Bang._

_(bang._ a man in suspenders falls to the ground, his arms shaking and his breath short.)

 _(bang._ he cries out and looks at you with furious eyes, sparking with life.)

 _(bang._ you put the spark out. like a single breath to a candle’s stilling flame.)

(your vision swims, graying in and out like a breaking tide. red is drooling out onto the snow and leaking over your face. there are hands closing over your shoulders, digging into your flesh and chilling you to the bones beneath. tall, thin, sepulchral.)

(watching. waiting.)

(pleased.)

_good boy_

(it fades. it fades and you’re falling back into the snow, ungloved hands going out behind you to keep you from falling onto your back, keeping you upright.)

(keeping you sane?)

(no.)

(you’re watching this _person_ \- this stranger, this _person_ \- die.)

(you did that.)

(why aren’t you frightened?)

_because you are_

_a good boy_

\--

“Alex - Alex? You there? Alex, _look at me_ \- Tim, he’s waking up!”

Sun pours in past Alex’s eyelids, painting them golden. He winces, the headache in his skull bursting and flowering into his neck, his spine, everywhere. It aches, and he isn’t shy in letting the whole neighborhood know.

“What in the _hell?”_ he croaks out, throat sore.

That is, he would if he could find his voice.

“That’s kinda what we want to know.”

Alex manages to open his eyes and squint at the smeared halation of bronze encircling Jay’s head, a backlit flare that almost makes him look angelic. He’d reach out and scrub his fingers through his hair if he could move his arm. His extraordinarily heavy arm. And his legs. Hell, his everything. He doesn’t think he’ll be moving anytime soon.

“We’ve been looking after you all morning,” Jay says softly, the unspoken apology heavy in his tone. He looks over to the corner. Alex follows suit until he glimpses the undelivered batch of papers. A prickle of annoyance settles in Alex’s chest, but he can’t find the energy to track that line of emotion into anything more.

“Why did I need looking after?” he rasps, blinking the spots from his vision.

“You wouldn’t wake up, no matter how much I shook you or - or, um, how hard Tim slapped you,” Jay says sheepishly. That explains the way Alex’s face fucking _stings._ He rubs at the sore skin tenderly, his brow furrowed with worry. “How much did you have to drink last night?”

Alex wants to say ‘not much’, because it’d be the truth. But that’s the only explanation he has for it: he got drunk, wandered out, and - 

And -

“Where’s Tim?” he demands, bolting upright. Jay fusses over him, pinning him back against the bed. It’d be a nice position if they weren’t talking about Tim, he’s got to admit that. Maybe he’s still a little drunk.

“He’s in the kitchen making tea,” Jay says gently, searching the man’s eyes as his confusion mixes in with the concern written upon his face. “Why?”

(The blood, though, the fallen body, who was that?)

(If that wasn’t him -)

Tim enters the bedroom, bearing a tray, or a piece of cardboard acting in lieu of a tray, with three chipped cups upon it. He frowns at Alex, though there isn’t any hostility in it. It looks like _worry,_ of all things.

Tim, worried about him, after what he almost - what he _did_ last night, he -

“Jay’s been looking after you,” Tim says slowly, walking across the room and placing the makeshift tray down on the end table. He dusts his hands off on the front of his trousers, then turns to Alex with a raised eyebrow and a bit of a smirk. “I kept telling him that you’re just a lightweight who can’t hold his liquor.”

“He hasn’t left his room since last night. It’s more than just liquor!” Jay protests.

“Well, I’m sure if there’s something going on, Alex would _tell us.”_ Tim hands Alex one of the cups of tea. It’s a weird feeling, being _cared_ over like this. He’s used to it from Jay, with the insistence that he share his coat for warmth or that he eat food that isn’t even in the house. From Tim, though - 

(If Tim would just _look_ at him like he did before, with the grudging respect. The intrinsic distrust. It would be easier. He wouldn’t feel so queasy.)

“So, _is_ there something going on?”

Alex jerks his head up. The sudden movement alone prompts another wave of dizziness to come crashing over his vision, and he barely grapples down the surge of nausea to match. “What?”

“Tell Jay he’s worrying for nothing,” Tim says tiredly, impatiently, “and drink your damn tea. I worked real hard on it.” He inclines his head at the undrunk cup Alex still holds loosely in one hand, corner of one mouth fixed in a self-deprecating slant. Obliging his demands, Alex sips warily from it and discovers that it’s nothing more than vaguely bitter-tasting hot water. Might as well be coffee, but the normalizing action clears his head enough to let him think.

It’s not as though he hasn’t injured others in the name of the business before.

But it was different. A shot in the foot. A bloody nose. A couple broken arms and legs. Just enough to shut up the squealer threatening him.

Even then, Jay has always looked so sad when he came home with red upon his knuckles or a sore fist.

(Would his sadness morph into fear if he knew what he did last night without a single provocation?)

(He just remembers being so _angry.)_

He can’t.

He can’t do it.

“You’re right,” Alex manages through a croaky throat. He drinks from his cup again, the heat flooding his body and making him feel slightly more human. He forces a smile, the innocent cherry on top. “Jay’s worried for nothing. And he _should_ be getting his papers ready.”

Jay makes an indignant noise at the back of his throat as he reluctantly rises to his feet.

“But it’s just after Christmas - !”

“You heard the man,” Tim says disapprovingly, jerking his chin at the hallway. “He’s your boss right now. Not your boyfriend. Do as he says.”

“But - ”

Tim moves behind Jay while keeping the buffer of space between them, more or less forcing the younger man to shuffle petulantly from the room, shoulders hunched.

Alex continues to smile to himself, even as he feels the facade begin to crack. Maybe if he keeps smiling, it’ll all be okay.

As if he can’t remember what really happened.

As if nothing went wrong.

Alex closes his eyes, and all he can see is red.

\---

No one’s talked to him about the incident on Christmas since it happened, which he is just fucking _fine_ with, thanks for asking, and he would very much like to keep it that way. 

But things have _changed_ regardless. 

Much to his chagrin. 

The semi-comfortable routine they’d fallen into has been fractured, disturbed, and Alex wants nothing more than for things to return to the way they were. He wants Tim _gone,_ for fuck’s sake - he wants to live with Jay, together but alone, back to scraping together their paltry savings in search for a big house with a white picket fence and a couple big dogs to keep the world away.

The more he thinks on it, the more convinced Alex gets that Tim truly _is_ the source of all their problems. Things like not having enough food or the cold seeping through the drafty floorboards are normal, things Alex and Jay are used to and can deal with well enough. And he’s always heard - nameless _things_ in the corners of his mind, whispering to him. All his life he’s heard them. And he’s ignored them.

But god _damn,_ they never got _this_ bad before Tim came along. Alex has always had the option available to _ignore_ them. He’s never lost time or hallucinated or whatever the fuck. He’s never woken up on the icy street, clothes stiff with drying blood, wondering with a creeping sensation of dread why there’s gore and gunpowder on his hands and _what exactly happened_ to those spare bullets.

He’s been fine. Everything has always been _fine._

Until now.

_And it’s all Tim’s fault._

Alex still can’t look at his hands for fear of seeing them stained with red. He can wash them all he likes, soak them in snow until they’re numb and blue and freezing, but it still won’t be enough. He can’t cleanse them of the red. If he looks at his hands for long enough he can see them, up to his elbows in the red soaking warmth just like before, and the lump presses in his throat and he hates himself.

He doesn’t tell Jay about how there have been perpetual tremors in those hands since Christmas. They’re murderer’s hands, he understands this with perfect clarity, and it chills him.

He buries himself in work. The newspapers are sent out thick and fast until the ink runs dry and Alex can’t hold the pen for all the shaking his hands do. The black of the ink catches the candlelight and turns red and more than once he’s had to resist the urge to fling the inkwells against the walls of his closet, rage at the invisible demons that haunt and hound at him and taint his head with visions of bullets tearing through Tim, through _Jay._

Jay tries to talk to him often, but Alex just shuts him out. Sometimes literally. Sometimes he falls asleep in his tiny closet, wrapped in his own self-loathing, hidden away in this tomb of cheap ink and paper and imaginary bloodstains.

Not that sleep does him any good anymore. He hates it now. When he does sleep, it’s fitful and full of shadowed nightmares. He only drops off when he must, and works himself to exhaustion in the restless hours in between. He wakes up frequently in the long nights, slick with cold sweat, trying to chase the flickering shades with more matches, more candles, more hot wax spilling over and running down his arms to secure himself in reality with the blissfulness of that pain.

He can see the worry in Jay’s face. Hell, he can see it in _Tim’s_ face, and since when did Tim give a damn about him? He hates the way the worry furrows make Jay look nervous and peaked - more so than usual - but he can hardly do anything to alleviate whatever private fears the other man may have. Alex doesn’t even know what’s happening to _himself._ How can he possibly put Jay’s worries to rest when he himself can’t even properly conceive of whatever the hell is happening to him?

He forgets his face after a little while, and when he sees its distorted image reflected back to him in the shards of another shattered bottle (did he break it? was this his fault?), he doesn’t recognize the pale, scared, trembling thing with the purple crescent moons stamped beneath its eyes, and he doesn’t understand how those eyes came to exude so much lifelessness and empty pain.

Alex tries to throw the gun away one night. He’s been sampling some of the goods, though it’s not like anyone really minds much, _really,_ and it seems like a good enough idea. Maybe with the gun gone, the nightmares will stop.

He knows it’s not that simple, but for now he’s drunk enough to believe it.

He staggers into some back alley, lugging an almost-empty bottle in one hand and the hated gun in the other. He carries it delicately, pinched between stiff, cold thumb and forefinger. The air outside is frigid but his insides are roiling, whether with anxiety or alcohol or an unhealthy mixture of both is unclear. He drains the bottle, takes refuge in the imaginary warmth of the whiskey as it scalds his throat, tries to fling the gun into a tipped-over bin.

It backfires horribly. The effort, not the gun, though Alex wouldn’t be surprised if the latter had as well. 

He wakes up with an awful clanging in his head, the gun still grasped firmly in hand, and the colored lights swim over his vision more strongly than ever. There are distant dreamthoughts floating his head - memories, perhaps? They’re all dark and furious, and they all say the same thing.

_stay your hand_

The rage is so grim and alien that he’s too terrified to do anything but listen. 

He does not try to get rid of the gun again.


	12. Freeze

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains a trigger warning for mentions of child death, as well as graphic descriptions of death and body horror as it pertains to freezing to death.

Jay doesn’t try to figure out what’s going on with Alex.

It’s not his place.

(“He’s your...person. You’ve got every right to ask.”)

He could, theoretically. Pull him aside during dinner and ask if he’s okay. Talk to him before going out on the job, bag full of papers over his shoulder. Maybe even wake him in the middle of the night and beg the answers out of him.

But Jay knows that he isn’t going to be getting anything beyond a ‘nothing’s wrong’ or possibly ‘why would you think there’s something wrong with _me?’_

Alex is impenetrable. It’s not his fault. It comes with the job. Jay is sure that he could peel and peel and claw deeper until he found what was going on all the way at the bottom of his soul - but how awful would that process be? There were the nights where Alex came home with a forced stiff line for a mouth, where he wouldn’t talk for hours, perhaps the entire evening. Whatever happened upon those nights -

(dead bodies with livers poisoned beyond use broken glass slit throats desperate men losing their humanity in the bottom of a bottle)

Those nights, they stand in the way of whatever Alex has got locked up now. It’s a mountain of trash, dumped into one place, impossible to climb.

So Jay doesn’t ask. He doesn’t poke or prod. He leaves Alex alone. He lets him claim his side of the bed and doesn’t touch him.

(“Don’t touch me, please, don’t, not tonight, I’m afraid I’ll - just. Don’t.”)

But then, sometimes, he feels like he might know. He thinks he can feel this - _thing_ inside Alex, crawling through him, black and inky and cold.

He doesn’t understand how he could possibly understand Alex’s pain when he doesn’t even know what it _is._ Maybe it’s his love for him, how very spiraled around one another they are with every ounce of emotion they possess. It could be his concern turning into crippling worry, keeping him awake for hours at a time.

But he can’t put his finger on it, no matter how long it consumes him, chilling him down through to his heart.

There’s - something. Hands, on him, running down his arms, gentle and loving, surely Alex feels him shivering and he wants to help, so Jay scoots closer, hides away in his chest.

Alex’s arms are bunched up against his own chest.

He doesn’t notice.

\---

Today is one of the few days that Alex doesn’t need Tim helping out with his mysterious packages and crates full of god-only-knows. So he goes out with Jay, watching out for him, pointedly guiding him around the icy patches in the streets and steering him away from the alleys.

He’s glad he went out with him today considering what’s happened in the town square.

A family must have perished in the cold overnight. Their bodies lay frozen in the snow, frost ridging their blue fingers. The woman had collapsed onto the cobblestone ground, tiny child slumped over her broken form.

Tim and Jay aren’t the only ones watching the cleanup process. The exact type of people Tim would expect to come rubbernecking are present, with their furry coats and their high chins. They tut and tsk and act as though this could have been prevented, and he notes bitterly that it _could_ have been - if anyone had actively bothered to care.

No one did, and no one ever does. 

They died alone but for the ice creeping its way into their veins.

It isn’t the first time Tim has seen the dead nestled in the streets. He’s stumbled over them in the mornings while half-asleep, chilled to the bone. There’s nothing like discovering a dead body first thing at sunrise, and it’s well and truly fucked that he’s almost become desensitized to the unpleasant sight. He simply finds himself preferring coffee to the shock of tripping over a tangle of gray arms and legs like sticks, warmth to the frostbitten remains practically welded to the cobblestones.

Jay, on the other hand, looks as pale as the body being pried from the street. It’s not a terribly inconclusive leap to assume this must be his first time seeing a corpse like this, up close. His paper route never touches on the alleys and backways where people usually slink off to die.

This time, however, it’s distressingly public.

Tim turns away and starts walking in the opposite direction and hopes Jay will follow. He doesn’t want him threading through the growing crowd for a closer look at their faces and their silent, desperate pleas for help that never came - came too late, rather, as their stiff bodies are peeled from the stones.

“We’re not gonna - we won’t go the same way, right?”

It’s the last question he wants to hear from Jay. He can hear the other man’s teeth chattering, from cold or fear or both.

(Seeing the triplet of corpses being hauled away with innumerable others, it’s far too easy to see Jay’s too-skinny, too-pale shrunken form among them.) 

(Worse: Jay knelt over Alex or over _Tim,_ crumpled like the child under its mother’s arm, desperate and shuddering to the last moment until his lungs grew too stiff and his heart too slow and his blood too sluggish - )

“We’ll never end up like that,” says Tim. He has to soften the words with the adendum of, “I promise.”

Jay tears his eyes away from the scene, finally turning to follow. There’s nothing to see there anymore. The streets have been cleared of the obstruction and the well-to-dos have all left, dispersing as they chatter about what to have for dinner. Fascinating, that they actually have _options_ for dinner and they _expect_ dinner to come to them, as it probably will.

“Yeah,” Jay says finally. His hand bunches into the fabric at the front of his shirt, rubbing the fabric between thumb and forefinger in nervous repetition. “Alex wouldn’t let us get sick and wander around on the streets when it’s this cold.”

Alex wouldn’t. He _wouldn’t_

He has no idea if the new Alex with the dark circles under his eyes and the brown-red stains spattered underfoot would be so kind.

Tim says nothing.

And thank god, he doesn’t have to, because Jay spots one of his regular customers across the street and immediately bolts after, paper held aloft.

Tim watches, stuffs freezing hands into his pockets, and follows.


	13. Break

“Alex, why are we in here?”

Silence.

“Alex. Please. You haven’t said anything and, and it’s starting to get weird. Please, tell me what’s - ”

There’s no verbal warning, no preamble. 

He can hear a quiet click.

He’s never seen Alex actually brandish the gun before. He glimpsed that shady exchange made in the back of a dark alleyway. He watched as the object changed hands, and that was the last he’d seen of it. Sometimes he’d catch the faint outline of the pistol against his coat, the cloth a thin drape over that latent threat, but it might as well not have existed otherwise.

Now Alex points it at him, the silver nose trembling, gleaming hard and bright in the light from the single candle within the room.

Jay can’t think. He’s lost in the barrel that’s staring him down, and he’s staring back, trying to comprehend why it’s trained on _him._

(He thought he was special. Alex didn’t trust anybody, but he trusts him. He’s special.)

(Right?)

“Nice one,” he manages through a strangled chuckle, as if to say _nice joke, ha ha, very funny, now put it down and stop acting so -_

So -

He doesn’t know where the laughter is coming from, but he wants it to go away. It’s too wild, too unhinged, spilling out from between parted jaws in the absence of locating any rational way to respond to an irrational situation. Nothing about this is funny. It’s the worst kind of joke Alex could have pulled - but it’s okay, it _has_ to be okay, because he’s never had the best sense of humor anyway. He’ll put down the gun, maybe smirk at him, and say that he thought Jay might have a good laugh with him. It’ll be fine, and they’ll act like this never happened and move on with their lives.

But he doesn’t.

And they don’t.

“Get against the wall.”

Alex’s voice isn’t his own. It’s low and hollow and commanding, and Jay wants to believe it isn’t him but he’s looking _right at him_ and it’s his soft brown eyes and his sharp line of a mouth and his hard calloused fist of a hand.

“What’re you - why?” He can feel his voice crack, his throat aching as the hot press of tears threaten to leak from his eyes. The bandages around his chest are too tight, and he can’t breathe, he can’t fucking breathe.

“I _said_ get against the _wall,_ Jay,” Alex says. His grip twitches the gun in a sharp, jerking gesture. 

Jay flinches. 

His hands go to his head, fingers fisting into his hair. His legs are shaking too badly for him to run, and he has no idea how good a shot Alex is, he can’t get away, he’s trapped and he doesn’t even know _why._

“Please, Alex, whatever I did, I - ”

 _”What did I just say?”_ Alex hisses between clenched teeth. The gun shakes harder, his grip tight and unforgiving. He advances on Jay, locking him into the corner, shoulders broad and stance. “God _damn_ Jay, get against the wall or _so help me - ”_

“I’m sorry!” Jay shrinks, the plea fracturing his voice. “Whatever it was, I’m _sorry!_ Just, just _don’t hurt me!”_

The tears are bright streaks down his face, hot against numb skin. He doesn’t feel real. _None_ of it feels real, it _can’t_ be, but Alex is pressing the gun barrel into his chest, digging it viciously into his sternum, swearing at him and demanding he obey his orders and

It’s all gone.

All at once, it’s gone, and the bubble of fear in Jay’s head splits like fruit overripe and he opens his eyes.

Jay never heard Tim enter, too preoccupied by the harsh crack of Alex’s words, that indictment snapping out between gritted teeth, the roaring of blood in his ears drowning out everything else. But there he is, he’s _here,_ punching through the fragile skin of the nightmare with a well-placed fist. 

He grinds a fist into Alex’s lower back, bringing the other man to his knees.

“What do you _think you’re - ”_

Tim hits him across the face in a blow that sends him sprawling. His foot pins Alex’s hand to the floor, bone crunching beneath the unrelenting pressure of his boot as he crushes the gun from Alex’s grip.

Alex howls.

It doesn’t sound right.

“Give me that,” Tim growls, nudging the pistol away with the toe of his boot before stooping to retrieve it. He crams it into his belt, dropping to his knees as he grips the other man’s hair and yanks his head back. 

His glare is hard, his expression cold.

Alex’s eyes burn with something wild and - 

“I’m not going to listen to any excuses you might have,” says Tim, low and dangerous. “You’re going to tell me what the fuck you were just doing and you’re going to tell me right now.”

Blood pounds in Jay’s skull, his head light. 

It can’t be happening. It can’t be _real._ But the gun had been against his heart, seconds away from burying a bullet into delicate skin with the depression of a trigger.

Jay feels himself back into the wall _just like Alex wanted,_ his breath shallow, eyes flicking between Alex and Tim.

“He can’t keep working here,” Alex says, the words guttural and furious, speaking to the ceiling, to apparently no one. He tries to twist out of Tim’s grip in his hair, but succeeds only in contorting his neck into a painful-looking arch.

Tim braces his knee into the small of Alex’s back, his expression locked, mouth twisted downward. He looks grim, repulsed, as he levers his weight onto Alex’s back and drives him steadily to the ground.

He gasps, fingers sinking into the floor, tearing tiny half-moons into the threadbare carpeting as he thrashes wildly, trying to wriggle from beneath Tim’s weight or flip the other man over, anything. His stare flickers to Jay, and - and anything that made him Alex evaporates. His glare is bereft of Alex’s warmth or his humor or his anger, or even the chill menace of his glower. Tim has an animal pinned beneath him, an animal that jerks once, twice beneath the weight shackled over him, trying lunge at Jay’s throat to tear it open with gnashing teeth. 

Jay’s heart judders in his throat. He trembles.

He still can’t move.

“He’s - he’s not _right,”_ Alex pants, a thing possessed. The words are ragged, his eyes inhuman. “Gonna out the whole business, get us all fucking _killed_ \- let me _go!”_

The last word tears in Alex’s throat, as if the pressure of it alone could shred his vocal cords into nothing.

Alex screams. His nails catch into the floor, wrists writhing. He very nearly squirms from Tim’s s grip, wrenching a hand free to reach for Jay’s ankle, but he gets no further. 

There’s the wet thud of the butt of the pistol meeting hard skull, then silence.

Alex goes limp.

The room plunges into silence. Tim and Jay watch the prone form warily, but he doesn’t stir. 

Jay feels the old instinct to check his pulse, but his limbs are still too heavy as he stands there, paralyzed, numb.

Tim shifts his weight off Alex’s back, rising slowly, stepping carefully to Jay’s side.

“You okay?” he asks quietly. He catches Jay’s eyes as they flicker to him, bright with terror. He doesn’t need to glimpse the answer there to know it.

No.

He’s really not. 

He isn’t okay, and he doesn’t know if he ever will be. But he’s _alive,_ for what it’s worth, and he has Tim to thank for it. For saving him. Saving him from -

He tries to thank him, but he can’t force the words past the thick roughness in his throat.

(The tears return. This time, he scrubs them away with the heel of one hand, ashamed.)

A hand settles onto his shoulder. He can’t look away from the man sprawled on the floor, the dark coat puddled over him.

He can hear Tim murmuring something, some soothing mantra about how _it’ll be fine, it’ll be okay, don’t worry._

Jay doesn’t think he can believe him.


	14. Water

Tim hasn’t let go of Jay’s hand since they left Alex’s. He grips the smaller man’s hand with white-knuckled fingers as he half-leads, half-drags him through the sewer tunnels, the only place he knows they might be safe.

(Maybe.)

(Maybe it’s the last place Alex will think to look.)

(Or maybe not.)

The blood is still pounding in Tim’s head, aching in his ears, and the awful dread of possible seizures and shaking and terror seeps into his already fear-saturated mind. He doesn’t stop, nor does he falter. He keeps leading Jay deeper into the twisting labyrinth of moss-darkened sewers.

Jay doesn’t speak. He hasn’t since they left. His face is pale, drawn, still empty and numb with shock. He allows himself to led, unresisting, through the darkened tunnels. 

Tim can’t blame him for his silence. If he wasn’t so fixated on getting them as far away from Kralie as humanly possible, he’d be the same. He keeps the focus on movement, however, for Jay’s sake, because _someone_ needs to ground the guy now that he’s lost the one person he loves more than anything in the world.

They have to keep moving. That’s the objective Tim hammers into himself, focusing on nothing but the rhythmic motion of sloshing through the shallow streams of fuck-knows-what in the sewer depths. Moving gives them the illusion of having a destiny in mind, a goal. It keeps Tim focused, it keeps him distracted, and, most importantly, it keeps them far away from Alex.

He’d always disliked the bastard, even after working for him, but he’d never thought for a _minute_ that - 

_“I’m sorry! Whatever it was, I’m sorry! Just, just, don’t hurt me!”_

The memory of Jay’s face, stricken and streaked with tear tracks, prompts Tim wish he’d given Kralie a solid kick in the face for good measure. He can feel his free hand curling into a fist and he barely resists the urge to begin pummeling the nearest wall.

_Breathe, idiot._

Breathe, forget the uselessness of the body he’s trapped in, the body that’s broken and beaten and in shambles in every sense of the word. The body that’s wracked with coughs and fits and nosebleeds and headaches, that frequently fails him when he needs it _most._

_Breathe._

He curses his feeble, sickly lungs and fractured mind, curses his lack of foresight. Curses his empathy and apathy in equal, bitter, furious measure.

Breathe, damnit. _Breathe._

That’s it. Breathe. Focus. _Get Jay out of here._

That’s the important thing. Pounding walls won’t accomplish anything. The important thing is to keep heading away from Kralie, and to get Jay to safety.

 _Jay._ Jay is the important thing here.

He repeats the words to himself under his breath, his own personal mantra. He mutters them until they cease to hold any meaning, until they simply become a meaningless assortment of noises that keep him grounded, keep him concentrating on what lies ahead, keep him sane. It’s a tactic he’s been forced to employ many a time whenever struck by one of those out-of-the-blue seizures that he loves _so_ much. 

The strategy works well enough, even now. Just long enough to stave off the impending feelings of horror and alarm that trailed in the wake of Kralie’s unexpected attack, just until Jay is safe.

They reach a fork in the tunnels, and Tim pauses as he ponders which is the best path to take when - 

“We have to go back.”

They’re the first words Jay’s said since his boyfriend tried to shoot him, point blank. They come out of fucking nowhere and Tim jumps. The steady splashing of their feet through sewer water had lulled him into a half-present daze. 

It takes Tim a moment to register _what exactly_ Jay had said.

“What?” he manages finally, surprise breaking the word in half.

“We have to go back.” Jay stops walking and jerks his hand out of Tim’s. He meets the other man’s incredulous stare steadily, but he still looks far too ashen and too frail.

“Back to _Kralie?”_ says Tim, incredulous. “The guy who, may I remind you, just tried to _shoot you?”_

“Let me talk to him,” pleads Jay with wide eyes and no, _fuck_ no if he’s pulling the Pity Method. On _Tim._ That may have worked when it was just Tim tossing a scrawny newspaper guy a nickel, but now Tim grimaces and looks away. “He - he was just - ”

“What? _Joking?”_ Tim says harshly, hating the way Jay flinches at the sting of his words. “He _had a gun pointed at you!”_

“I - I - ” Jay looks as if he’s about to cry again and Tim’s heart fucking _twists._ He can’t keep yelling at the man, not when he looks so goddamn _miserable._ “He - he didn’t mean it. He _couldn’t_ have meant it.”

“Let’s go, Jay.”

Tim snatches his hand, but Jay tears away.

“No. _No._ Tim, _please.”_

He tries to look defiant, but as Tim searches his expression, he finds there’s only anguished misery. And - regret?

Apology?

Oh, _shit._

Tim reacts far too late, lurching forward to catch at Jay’s arm.

“I _can’t.”_

Jay bolts.

“No!” The word tears from Tim’s throat and he lunges after, but Jay nimbly zigzags away from the bigger man’s reaching arm. He only pauses for an instant at the sewer junction, glances back at Tim, panic and despair stamped on his features - and disappears down the tunnel. 

Away from Tim.

Back to Alex.

Tim splashes after, water churning beneath his feet. He swears under his breath; Jay’s tiny frame lends itself easily to darting through tunnels like these. Tim is built for strength, not speed, and soon the distant slosh of Jay’s footsteps fades into the ambient lapping of the water against the walls.

The sewer goes quiet, save for the rapid thud of Tim’s terrified heart. 

Then the air detonates. 

A scream rends the wet silence, spurring Tim to hurtle through the sewers toward the sound’s focal point. He’s soaked all over, his heart is hammering, his lungs ache, and he wheezes between gasps, but _he doesn’t care._ The pitch and timber of the scream was unmistakable. 

_Jay._

Tim reaches the point of the disturbance, but by now there’s nothing left but the angry ripples of disturbed water. 

This had to be where it happened, where Jay was taken.

Lying in the foot-deep slough of liquid filth are two things. 

Jay’s battered newspaper cap, and the shabby cigarette stub he once offered to Tim as an apology present.

Tim kneels to scoop both objects from the sludge. He stares blankly at them as they hang limply from his hands.

Jay is gone. 

Alex is beyond help.

Tim is alone again, truly.

He closes his eyes, shuts out everything, and tries to hold himself in a place that is reasonable, steady, and safe.

It doesn’t work.

He feels himself sliding into abstraction.

If he could just _hold on_ -

He can’t.

He can’t hold onto anything.

There’s nothing left to hold on _to._

Jay's gone. Alex is gone.

And here he is, lying in puddled filth, body jerking in paroxysmal asynchrony as his body shudders, simultaneously too hot and too chilled to the bone.

Maybe that's just too fitting.

His body trembles. The heat and chills have swollen over his arms as they tauten his fingers and stab behind his eyelids and the horrid _numbness_ blossoms in the pit of his chest, aching in his too-fast heart. His hands are hot and prickly, this body isn't _his,_ he can’t breathe, oh _god_ but he can’t _breathe -_


	15. Breathe

He’s aware of water, dark and lapping around him. He’s aware of hands creeping underneath him to lift him from the shallow pools of filth. A low gasp catches in his throat. He can’t _breathe._

\---

He surges awake for a bare instant with a howl of alarm, anguish, fear. A face, hideously distorted, looms over him, and he catches the faintest impression of impossibly large eyes, cold and dark and empty, and thick tubes, obscene parodies of mouths and noses. The face dims, and so does everything else.

\---

Someone says his name over and over. He can feel their breath rattling in his ears, and he moans.

\---

He can’t stop shivering.

\---

It’s freezing outside but boiling beneath his skin all at once. His veins are on fire. He thinks he can hear someone screaming. Screaming something. His name?

Something worse?

\---

_What’s happening?_

\---

There’s an ungodly amount of freezing ice-cold in the room.

\---

When Tim’s eyes crack open, he’s relieved to find that they _stay_ open this time. He tries to sit up, but his arms tremble precariously at the effort, so he’s forced to slide back down again. His brain is muddled, his mouth dry, his skin warm and prickly.

He shuts his eyes again in despair.

So. _That_ happened.

He hates it. He doesn’t know what happened in the span of time he was out, or even for how long, but he knows that _it happened,_ and that’s bad enough. Hollow nausea creeps up his chest. He forces the bile rising in his throat down. His mouth is parched, rendering the act of swallowing painful, though the rest of Tim is soaked in what feels like equal parts cold sweat and scummy water.

The massive fucking irony of how dry and hollow he feels despite the apparent surrounding dampness is not lost on him.

Tim chooses to focus on something else. Anything else.

He takes in the environment, pleased to find himself relatively self-aware again. The glow of comfort fades when he notices the high, sloping roof of the chamber he’s in, the cylindrical walls slick with glistening moss, and the thick puddles coating the floor. The stench of fluids he doesn’t want to put a name to are thick in his nostrils. Tim grimaces, worst fears confirmed.

The sewers. Still.

He knows he’s not in the same place he was before.

_Before -_

Everything washes back with a cold, sick pang in his chest. Alex. The gun. _Jay._

Tim tries to sit up again in a panicked, heart-stopping rush. This proves to be a mistake - the room begins to spin sickeningly, his stomach drops, and _oh god please no not again no._ He gulps in the moist air in great heaving gasps to ease away the vibrant darkness ringing his vision.

Slowly, arduously, he gets to his feet, staggering, and braces himself against the slippery walls for support. Everything about him is heavy, dull, like lead.

“J - ” he tries calling the other man’s name but the words are jagged in his parched throat. He starts hacking immediately. Alarmed at how loudly the sound echoes off the sewer walls, Tim unsuccessfully tries muffling the sound, but the coughs refuse to stop.

The telltale _plash_ of another pair of feet sends his heartrate racing again, but as he tries to run he only ends up sliding helplessly in the muddied ankle-deep water. A hand shoots out to catch hold of him before he falls.

A - very thickly gloved hand.

Tim faces his rescuer and promptly lets out a choke of surprise at the enormous dark eyes, the tubes and knots twisting grotesquely from the stretched skin of its mouth. He tears away from it and sends himself careening face-first back into the water. Disoriented, Tim claws himself back to his feet and starts moving rapidly in the direction that he dearly hopes will take him far away from - _whatever the hell that is._

When finally he’s able to paw away most of the filmy water obstructing his vision, it occurs to him that the darkly distorted face isn’t a face at all, but a gas mask. The revelation calms him only marginally. His heart still thumps madly in his ribcage.

“You - ” he pants, dripping. “Who - ?”

The gas-masked figure holds up a finger in a clear _‘shh’_ -ing gesture, then glances furtively over its shoulder. It gingerly grasps his elbow in one hand and begins to lead him through the tunnels. Tim has little choice but to stumble semi-blindly after, still blinking filthy water from his eyes. Questions teem through his head at an unbearable rate, flicking through his sluggish brain too quickly for him to articulate them to his silent companion. It only leads him deeper into the web of underground turns and crisscrosses, guiding him with gentle tugs.

Tim doesn’t quite know what to _think_ of this new strange, silent partner, and his brain still isn’t moving clearly or quickly enough for him to sort it all out. All he knows is that he ultimately has little choice but to trust the masked stranger. They’ve made no attempt to hurt him yet and have had every opportunity to, so Tim opts to follow their lead, at least until he knows if they can lead him back to the surface. He and Jay were lost the minute they set foot in the sewers.

_Jay._

A pang of guilt and worry hits him as the memory of the other man’s panicked face swims back into his head. He wants to demand if the masked person had seen him at all, but they’ve remained staunchly silent this entire time, and Tim doesn’t know how to communicate his gibbering terror for his friend in way that they could understand and respond to.

_“We have to go back.”_

Shit. If Jay succeeded in going back, there wouldn’t be much to stop Kralie from finishing what he’d started, especially now that Tim was nowhere near to help.

_Shit shit shit._

They make one last turn into a smaller, less highly domed chamber. Tim recognizes it as the river access tunnel due to the bars, thick with rust, that prevent them from going any further into the torpid current. He swallows nervously, now fully aware that he’s essentially trapped with this stranger.

Two new figures pull his attention away from that disconcerting thought. One is lying prone on the ground while the other stoops over them curiously.

Oh.

Oh, _fuck._

_”Jay.”_

Tim splashes frantically over, hooking hands around the skinny shoulders hunched against the filmy water, shivering, shaking him.

“Jay. _Jay._ C’mon, man.”

The other man’s eyes flicker open, pale against the backdrop’s murky brown-dark.

“Nnn,” he slurs. “Tim?”

Then his eyes open fully, flit to first the gas-masked figure at Tim’s side, then to the hooded one at his own, and startles, arms jerking in the muddy water.

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” he mutters bracingly. “C’mon. It’s okay. They’re here to help us.” He darts a skeptical look at the vague shape at Jay’s side, their face obscured by the thick cloth wound around their head and neck. “I think.”

The hooded one dips their head in a slow nod.

Both parties watch each other, silent but for the staggered cadence of their breathing.

“Wait, uh,” says Jay, punctuating it with a watery cough as he draws himself up into a more upright sitting position. “Who’re you guys, then?”

Both figures exchange a slow glance.

Bizarrely, almost amusingly in tandem, they raise their hands to point at the smooth slope of wall opposite.

There’s something scrawled there in vast, spiky letters, carved against the cobbled stone with something like charcoal, black and blacker:

**_TO THE ARK_ **

“Okay,” says Tim, not really sure how to respond to that or whether he can assume that’s a _name_ or an explanation or - or whatever, really. At this point, stranded in a slew of grimy water at some lost point in the tangled labyrinth of the city sewer system, they’ve got nothing else going for them. He’ll take what they can damn well get.

He looks at the gas-masked figure - it’s easier, he thinks, to meet their eyes when there’s a clear definition of where the eyes would be. Might be. He’s not really sure. The thought that they might not be entirely _human_ is almost too absurd to entertain, but then, maybe that wouldn’t be the strangest thing either of them have seen.

“Are you here to help us?” says Tim steadily.

Beside him, Jay sucks in a sharp intake of breath.

Both of them nod.

“Oh, god,” whispers Jay with the strained tone of dawning realization. Tim shoots him a confused frown. Jay jabs a finger in the pair’s direction, his eyes wide.

“The codes,” he says. “Tim, the codes in the paper, the ones Alex said he didn’t put there, they - were those _you?”_ He directs the last question at the soundless pair, and Tim’s stomach knots when they lower their heads in a synchronized nod.

“You’ve been watching us,” Tim growls from beneath lowered brows. “What, _stalking_ us?”

“Not us,” says Jay, his voice faint. “Alex.”

The nascent outrage swelling beneath Tim’s chest abruptly dissolves as he whips back around to look at him. Jay blanches, the little color still present in his face draining as he looks dully ahead.

“Oh fuck,” he breathes. _”Alex.”_

“Hey.” Tim seizes the other man’s shoulder roughly, shaking him. “We left him behind. He’s gone. We’re _safe._ It’s okay, it - ”

 _”No.”_ Jay tears himself from Tim’s grip and staggers wildly to his feet, the word cracking miserably down the middle. “We’re _not._ And _he’s_ not.”

“What, _Alex?”_ he blurts in disbelief. “Jay, come _on._ He tried to kill you! _Both_ of us. He’s not - _right.”_

“That wasn’t _him,”_ says Jay, his voice pained. “He wouldn’t - it _couldn’t_ have been. They’ve been following him, they’ve gotta know _why,_ why he - ”

His throat works soundlessly for a moment.

Tim turns to the silent duo and rises to his full height, his jaw set, his glare icy and flinted.

“Either of you feel like weighing in, then?” he snaps.

The one wearing the gas mask nudges the other, and they withdraw something from their pocket, something that crackles as they extend it in Tim’s direction.

After a moment’s cautious hesitation, he accepts the proffered scrap of paper. He spares it only a glance before scowling; the words look like little more than formless gibberish.

“What is it?”

He shoves the paper unceremoniously in Jay’s direction. The other man squints at it, scrubbing a hand under one eye.

“One of his old papers,” he murmurs. “Lemme just - ” The corner of his mouth twitches in a hesitant grin, his expression clearing. “It’s a _code._ It’s - they’re friends, Tim. They want to help. They're saying we’re not the first - not the first to have this happen to.”

“What?” He looks between Jay and the pair of them dubiously. “What does that even _mean?”_

“There’s something _out there,”_ Jay insists, waving the paper like it’s some kind of ticket prize. “Something that - _changes_ people. It changed _him._ It’s why they hide here - the masks, the water - it keeps them - _distorted._ It keeps them from being _seen.”_

Tim snorts. “Bullshit.”

“Tim.”

Tim looks away.

“If it’s true, we can’t just leave him there.”

 _”If_ it’s true.” He raises a finger, ramrod straight. _”If.”_

“We have to go back.”

Tim sighs and scuffs a hand through his hair.

“Tim - ”

“Okay, but _why?”_ he snaps, the words low and vicious. “Why, why should we even _care_ about anything that happens to that - he tried to _kill you._ He would’ve, if I wasn’t there, don’t you _forget.”_

Jay looks at him, swallows hard, and ducks his head to stare at the dark water.

“It wasn’t really him,” he says quietly.

Tim folds his arms over his chest.

“Really.”

“It couldn’t have been. He’d never - he wouldn’t _do_ that. Something else was - _using_ him.”

A chill runs down the length of Tim’s spine, and he hunches his shoulders a little more securely around himself.

“Tim,” says Jay. “Please.”

He doesn’t dare look up. He knows what he’ll see. Blue eyes stretched wide and anxious and pleading, desperate to go back for the one man that looked at him and saw someone worth giving a damn about when nothing else in the world was going to.

He looks up anyway.

He sighs again.

Goddamnit.


	16. Soldier

(your eyes slit open. your head is pounding, a line of drums hammering against the contours of your skull.)

(you’re on the floor.)

_wake up_

(angry.)

(why is it angry?)

(you did what you were asked.)

(you did what you were _told.)_

(you listened. you obeyed. you _tried.)_

(you did your best.)

(your head is throbbing.)

_get up_

(you get up. you shiver. your legs shudder beneath you. you brace a hand against the wall as you sway. your vision stutters in distorted triplicate.)

(you put a hand to your head. there is a tight mask of dried blood coating your hair and temple and face, and it hurts to touch. the hand jumps away again.)

(you inspect your hand closely. it looks the same as it always has. not thin and sticklike, with fingers that splay upward forever. the skin is not pale, colorless, stretched tightly over knobbed bone.)

(it is your hand.)

(you are holding the gun. it asked this of you.)

(you lower the gun.)

_failure_

(you know. you _know.)_

(you’re sorry.)

(bright pain arcs up your spine, turning you convex with agony. you scream, hands pressed to the sides of your head, something dark and warm leaking from your nose and your ears.)

(but you’re _sorry._ you’re sorry you’re _sorry YOU’RE SORRY)_

(PLEASE)

(PLEASE)

_(PLEASE)_

_(YOU’RE **SORRY** )_

(the punishment sings on, scratching at the edges of yourself, and the screams tear at your throat.)

(the shriek of metal on metal.)

(the crack of rending bone.)

(was this you or a part of you. were you alive for this. awake? was this you. did this happen to _you.)_

(what was your name.)

(you cannot remember.)

_find them  
forever_

(yes.)

(you rise again, your breathing harsh and ragged and heavy. it will be okay. it will be fine.)

(you can do that.)

(you can listen.)

(you can find them.)

(you’ll make it right.)

(you’re sorry.)

(you’ll make it right again.)

(you’ll do anything. you’ll rectify it. you’ll make it right.)

(you’ll do anything.)

(please.)

_be a  
good boy_

(you can do that. you can be good. you can do as you’re told. you’ll be good, won’t you? you’ll be good and do as you’re told and everything will be all right again.)

(you just have to find them.)

(find them first.)

(find them, burn them, burn the flesh and char the bones. like you were meant to.)

(like you were made to.)

(where could they have gone.)

_look  
beneath_

(your grip on the gun is white-knuckled and the metal is cool against your flesh.)

(and beneath it is cool, and dark, and laminar. under water, under stone.)

(it is where they hide. where they creep. rats, parasites, undermining you, always set on taking what's yours and ripping you clean from it. the realization smolders in your chest. they ran from you. they _ran._ scared, like the scuttling things they are.)

(they thought they could hide from you.)

(from _you.)_

(your breathing is steady. your mind is clear.)

(you think it has not been this clear in a long time.)

(it feels good. bright. clean.)

(ready.)

(you are coming.)

(you can do as you’re told.)

(you can make it right.)

(you just have to find them.)

(you just have to find them.)

(then everything will be fine.)


	17. Tear

The one in the hood leads them above ground. Their footsteps are quiet against the cobbled stone, as they creep ever upward and open their way to the surface.

Tim hasn’t said anything.

He thinks it’s a bad idea.

Jay sets his jaw defiantly and scrambles to follow. It _is_ a bad idea. It _is._ Willingly going back, facing him again when he isn’t _him_ but - 

But it’s _Alex._

He watches the broad shoulders of their mute guide as they deftly weave their way through the knot of twisting passageways, until they reach the surface with an icy gust of air. 

The one in the mask stays below. They watch in silence as the trio clamors up and onto the open, silent street, the stars dimly reflected the dark, stretched eyes of the gasmask. He knows he glimpsed hair trailing from behind the mask, long and thin and straggling. He shudders to think who it might’ve been beneath. They were a person, once.

Like Alex.

What could _flay_ that from them like that?

He’s sure he doesn’t want to know.

But he’s just as sure, even _more_ so, that he will never sit by and let the same thing happen to Alex. Not if there’s a chance. Maybe that’s why they’re helping him. Because there’s a _chance._

Jay tips his head back, sucks the night air in. It’s cold, even colder now that they’re out of the scummy water. The scattered powder of stars studs the sky, winking faintly through the thick-piled clouds.

He turns to glance at Tim.

“Come on.”

It’s too dark to see the expression on the other man’s face, but he sees his head nod, the pale hush of breath misting from his mouth.

It’s cold, and Jay shivers as each breeze cuts him to the bone.

He recognizes the street, the golden pooled light thrown from the sputtering street lamps.

“Not far,” he assures their companion, his teeth chattering.

They say nothing.

The door is still open when they reach it, and Jay slows. He darts Tim another nervous glance, hating the need for reassurance, but the impulse to reach forward could only be tempered by one thing.

“Do you think he’s - ”

Tim moves forward and nudges the door open with the toe of his boot, his mouth set in a grim, determined line.

“Only one way to find out,” he says.

Jay gulps shakily and nods.

“Let’s go.”

Their hooded guide draws back, folding their arms. Jay looks at them quizzically and jerks his chin at the door.

“Are you gonna - ?”

They shake their head. He breathes in slowly and curls his arms around himself, unintentionally mirroring their posture.

“Yeah,” he says quietly. “Okay. That’s - okay.”

They make no move to leave as he enters and closes the door softly behind them.

“Whatever happens,” says Tim, his voice pitched low, “you stay behind me.”

“Like _hell.”_

_”Jay.”_ Tim hisses out the word, his eyes hard. “I’m serious. You think you can take him if he’s still lost it? You _want_ to?”

Jay stares at his feet and tries not to look sullen.

“That’s what I thought,” says Tim, though not unkindly. He pauses as they reach the room where - where _Alex_ -

Where he didn’t know what he was doing.

Where something _changed_ him.

Maybe it had been going on for longer. Maybe it was Jay’s fault. Did he push Alex away? Did he - was he spending too much time with Tim at Alex’s expense? When did the resentment _start._ He could’ve stopped it. He _must_ have been able to.

Jay shakes his head to clear it. He can’t let himself get mired in that now. Not _now._

Tim pauses in front of the door.

“For the record,” he says, “I still think this is a _very bad idea.”_

Jay looks at him pointedly, and Tim sighs as he turns away.

He slams his shoulder into the door and it crashes open.

They enter in an uncoordinated spill, Tim charging in with Jay at his heels, shoulders squared, fists clenched at their sides.

And it’s empty.

It’s _empty._

They gape, soundless, speechless, bereft.

Neither of them are prepared for the gunshot.


	18. Fall

the night is cold and clear, the rime slick beneath their feet.

they look to the sky.

it has been so long since they’ve seen it.

all they have had is water and the stink and murk of the city sewer system. their ark. their safety. nothing can touch them in the water, with its constant movement shattering their reflections. their faces are covered. their voices are silenced.

it is silent.

nothing has touched them.

nothing has burned them.

perhaps because there is nothing left to burn.

they had a name and face, before this. they did, both of them. it mattered deeply to them, once.

those things are the first things one loses when they choose to submerge themself in what cannot be known. names and faces they ceded over willingly. the price of survival, of safety. nothing touches them in the ark. nothing touches them in the water.

it has a new puppet, they hear.

they had tried to warn it before it became the soldier it is.

communication in the only way they still know and remember.

voices silenced, and minds left in fragments.

their name began, they think, with an ‘m’ or a ‘b’ or a ‘p’ - something that made a hard-soft sound when the lips were pressed together.

lips.

they brush a finger to where those might be beneath the swathes of cloth wrapped ‘round their skull. they tore their face from themselves. they had to.

just as it is blank and empty, so are they.

so they must be.

just as blank, and just as empty. canvases without the paint.

they could stop it. they had to.

there are whispers.

there are chances.

they know the outcomes of things, the diverging points, the way a possibility splits into something many-layered and multidirectional. the know how it takes the root of a person and torques them, twists them, forges them into something anew. something cracked and damaged. something that walks and speaks and kills when it is asked.

they have lost so much, but they have learned to adapt to it.

to refine it.

to break themselves so they could not be broken.

they close their eyes.

were they ever a 'he'? they think they might have been. they were. they are a collective, now, a joint effort. they are bound in one single purpose, sheathed with that blinding intent. there cannot be anything else.

and so.

and so they wait.

they wait and they watch.

the two men enter the house and they cross their arms and wait and hold themselves still, poised as the sentinel they are. they know how to hold themselves still and to be watchful and vigilant. they know how to be quiet and how to be patient. they know how to wait.

they do not deal in hope.

they deal in code and in sacrifice.

they are sure to remember that when the barrel of the gun is pressed into the small of their back and the trigger is pulled.

the ground rushes to meet them.

the frost has spread evenly across the ground in a gridded inflorescence of minute, intricate patterns.

even as it is stained red, it is beautiful.

the thin slip of nightmare gilds the edges of their vision, white against black, nearly invisible in the uniform, liquid dark, its face the empty thing it always was.

the puppet stands over them as their life leaks from between gloved fingers clasped over their chest, running out in scarlet rivulets.

he trains the gun at the point between their eyes.

they look to the stars, that iridescent scatter flung across the night sky.

it is good to see them again.

they deal in code.

they deal in sacrifice.

they close their eyes.

the puppet fires.


	19. Seizure

They’d been stupid. They’d been so _stupid._ Coming back had to have been the quickest way to ensure that one of them would end up dead.

It was a mistake. He’d _said_ it was, he’d _told_ Jay it was a mistake. And just like the idiot he pretends he isn’t, he’d listened anyway. They’d gone back _anyway._

The door smashes open for the second time in what feels like as many minutes. The air outside is crisp and cold. Hollow.

Tainted.

Alex folds to the ground like a cut-string puppet. At his feet lies the bitterly familiar hooded and masked shape, now cast still and unmoving, the crimson drooling out between their fingers as they lay, unevenly splayed over the frost-overlaid stone.

“Alex,” breathes Jay, sounding choked.

Tim can’t look at either of them.

There is a thing at the corner of his vision that shouldn’t exist.

It’s real. It’s _real._

The thought drums at the interior of his skull with a frightening coherence but the rest of him slides to the ground because he has to, because he can’t _look_ at it and he can’t _breathe_ and he can’t look away.

His lungs seize in their first paralyzing spasm.

Alex has already begun coughing.

It looms there, its head canted curiously to one side, not standing or moving but simply _being,_ impossibly, but it can’t be, it _can’t_ because he _knows those were hallucinations when he was little._

_They had to be._

That’s what they _said._ That’s what they _always_ said, drilled that cornerstone into his brain. Not real, Tim. Not real. _Not real not real not real._

It slips closer, but it _can’t_ be, not when he hasn’t torn his gaze from it and it hasn’t even _moved._ It doesn’t make sense. The thing doesn’t make damn _sense._

A tendril of _something_ touches his mind. It hasn’t moved, not in any way he can _see_ but -

The contact burns.

An involuntary cry of alarm twists into one of agony as a horrible jarring pain splits down his spine.

Tim arches his back and screams.

The neural attack intensifies, pierces effortlessly through all the fragile barriers in his fragile head. He tips forward, barely catching himself as he falls to his knees, dropping to all fours. He can't breathe for the thick coughs shredding his throat. The air is burning, his lungs are on fire. Something cold and horrible constricts into a hard knot in his chest.

A terrible pressure builds in the center of his head, ironclad and unrelenting.

It hurts to breathe. It hurts to _think._

He wants to to yield to the old, childish urge clap his hands over his ears and curl up in the corner of his tiny darkened hospital room and sing loudly until all the Bad Things go away, god but he _wants_ to but he can’t _move._

It comes shrieking into him.

He can’t feel.

He can’t _anything._

He can’t feel his body or his fingers or the coughs anymore. Every part of him is both too cold and too hot, humming with hurt, throbbing with each agonizing, vertiginous pulse of the thing reaching deeper, carving its way into him, reaching for the delicate parts of himself so it can scrape them clean.

When they come, the words barely register. They don’t seem real. None of it is, each syllable static-torn and unnaturally accented. Whatever displaced emotion lurks behind them is utterly beyond his grasp to translate or understand.

_found  
you_

He's back in his body but he wishes he wasn’t. Each excruciating discharge from that  _thing's_ head is all-encompassing again, _physical_ and _present_ and _oh, god, oh fuck._ His throat is raw from coughs and screams in equal measure, his eyes puffy and red from tears, his knees scratched and bleeding. The ground should be cold beneath his hands. It should _exist._ It should be _there._ The ice should be burning the skin of his palms raw.

He can’t feel it. He can’t feel anything.

That - _thing_ can’t exist. By all laws of nature, it _shouldn’t._

His body convulses again in a sick, lurching paroxysm. This time it pitches him to the ground, exhibiting a much more familiar brand of torment.

_No. No no no no nononoNONO NO NO NO -_

There’s darkness threatening to close around his already weak and spotty vision. Tim grits his teeth and shoots one last defiant glare at the thing. He thinks he picks up some vaguely smug sensation pulsing from it, but whatever it is feeling is so terrifyingly distant and _alien_ that he can’t place it.

His jaw aches when the seizure passes. Every inch of him hurts. The breath is ragged in his lungs, his eyes fluttering to stay open, his cheeks hot and streaked with tears. His lungs feel like they’re deflating, his throat feels torn, raw, as if bleeding from the inside out.

He’s lying on his back.

Colored lights pulsate vaguely, sickeningly at the edges of his vision.

Grunting with the effort, Tim rolls onto his stomach and levers himself to his knees with trembling arms.

It’s still there. That _thing_ in the corner of his mind, dark and edgeless and distorted and waiting, the pale splash of its faceless face and the too tall, too-skinny limbs that stretch endlessly for the sky. His head lolls back lazily to fix it with a cold glare, even as he knows the simple act of _looking_ at it will cause his eyes to swim and his stomach to churn.

He doesn’t want to let it out of his sight.

It does not move. It simply watches, and waits.

And looks.

Always watches.

No eyes.

He has no idea what it could possibly be expecting from him. The fight’s fled from him. Tim’s arms dangle limp at his sides. It’s over. Jay pants quietly somewhere behind him, and Tim can hear Alex’s rattling breaths, doubtless as the man stares, aghast, at his bloodied murderer’s hands.

Which would, what, make Tim the only thing between them and the whatever-it-is?

It looks at him. He looks warily back.

The fight's gone from him. It's _gone._ He wouldn’t even know what, hypothetically, he’d be fighting _for._

Alex?

Like Alex ever cared for Tim.

Jay?

The only one Jay cares about is Alex.

Not himself, that’s for damn sure.

Tim’s done. He’s done, he’s over, he’s washed his hands of it. His vision starts flickering and the thing keeps staring and his mind is going slow and gray and empty. He doesn’t know what else to do other than to stare semi-defiantly at the thing and wait for something to happen.

He slips down onto all fours again, grits his teeth as he breaks eye contact. He never asked for any of it. Sure, life was never sunshine and roses - he grew up in a _mental hospital,_ for fuck’s sake - but it never handed him anything he couldn’t cope with.

But this - this fucking _thing_ is beyond life, beyond anything.

No, Tim’s done. _Done._

 _What is it?_ he thinks to the thing-that-shouldn’t-exist wearily. _What do you want?_

_looking_

_For what?_ Tim’s done with cryptic coded messages and thought-forms and puzzles. He wants someone to be goddamn _clear_ for once in his life.

And then -

_And then -_

_found  
you_

Oh.

Oh.

Tim shuts his eyes.

_Oh._

Okay.

It makes sense. Alex went after Jay, then Tim. Alex was the tool through which the thing worked, but he wasn’t the target. Alex was _never_ the target.

And so that doesn’t leave Tim with much choice.

He pulls in a slow, ponderous breath.

A few days ago he might have gone frantic with horror and fear, but now he’s utterly serene. He almost feels like smiling. It makes sense, all of it.

_It’s me, isn’t it?_

If it responds he doesn’t hear it, but he knows the answer.

He finally glances over his shoulder. Jay has crept to Alex’s side, sliding one arm over the stunned man’s shoulders. Alex shivers and swears between gasping breaths, and still his arms are sheathed in crimson, but Jay holds him close. Alex leans into him, and Tim is certain he can see tear tracks from behind the cracked lenses of his mangled wire frame glasses.

They’ll live. Maybe not as happily and completely as before, but they’re _them,_ and it’s the least he can do at this point. Their minds will heal, even if it’s ragged and slow and painful. They’ll take care of each other, Tim has faith in that.

Faith is a kind of hope, isn’t it?

And family is what you’re supposed to fight for, isn’t it?

Jay and Alex might not be _family,_ but they’re near enough like it.

And somehow, incredibly, that’s enough.

“Okay,” Tim whispers, and he turns back to gaze calmly at the faceless face. “Okay.”

It reaches its horrifying arms out, elongated and stretching the realms of all possibilities. Almost like an embrace.

Tim steps into it. Jay’s noticed and is screaming Tim’s name, Alex makes a hoarse, strangled noise in the back of his throat, but in Tim’s head there’s only blissful silence.

There’s a darkness around him, something that sprawls further than what he can see. It’ll twist his mind. It’ll ruin him. It’ll ravage him beyond repair. He knows it.

He doesn’t look back, doesn’t falter. He won’t regret this now. He steps into the void and lets it swallow him whole.

He’ll be lost to the inconceivable and absurd, fractured beyond repair by concepts outside of the realm of his comprehension.

He thinks, lastly, of Jay and Alex’s faces as he best remembers them - Jay with his hollow, gaunt face and shy grin, Alex’s half-smile just barely tinged with grudging respect.

And Tim smiles.

And for a fleeting second, just before his consciousness detonates, everything is fine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was one of the possible endings that was pitched for the fic's conclusion. Since I can't locate the other potential ones we had and am too burned out from revisiting this thing to write them, this'll be the 'official' ending even though I'm not very happy with what I wrote. The implications are unfortunate, and it's just kind of a disappointing, thematically inconsistent payoff. Sorry.


	20. Mend

He doesn’t know for how long he crouches there, in shock, one arm hugging Alex’s form awkwardly to him. He doesn’t know how long it’s been since he saw that… _thing_ wrap itself around Tim and just _vanish._

There’s nothing to signify the passage of time but his own crippling numbness.

Eventually he feels a tug on one sleeve and he blindly obeys it. He rises, still protectively curling one arm over Alex’s shoulders as he leads the other man along, and the two stumble away. Alex doesn’t resist or speak. He’s shivering too hard for Jay to blame him, seemingly incapable of speech. His eyes stare vacantly at the ground. Grief clings to his face in the form of a knit brow and tear-streaked cheeks.

It’s not until Jay registers the _plash_ of their feet in water that he understands. They’re back in the sewers. Their gasmasked ally has led them back to the safety of the dark and damp and cold. Now they stop dead, turn, and face Jay with their head tilted to one side inquisitively. They lead him no farther.

Are they alone, now? Are they grieving?

Jay tries to speak but finds his voice too dry. Everything feels distant, unreal. He can’t process any of what happened, not any it. 

From the look of him, neither can Alex.

“I…” Jay’s voice rasps in his throat, and he swallows hard before continuing. “What happens now?”

The question is so weak and pathetic that he doesn’t blame the masked figure for not answering. Questions teem through Jay’s head, questions of a frightening and unfathomable nature, and he has no idea how to pose them. And there are some, such as _what about Tim?_ that he’s simply too afraid to ask.

The gasmasked figure eventually searches through their pockets and comes up with a small scrap of paper. They write crookedly on it, in their odd, coded wording, and hand it to Jay. 

Jay accepts the paper with a low sigh. More codes, still. He sets to work deciphering it immediately, if not only to give his mind some senseless task to distract it from the cloying fear of whether or not Alex is ever going to be all right, or _what exactly had happened to Tim._

_Stay here. Safe water._

The code is sloppily done, easily broken, but by the time Jay has solved it, their elusive masked ally has vanished. 

So that’s it, then.

“Come on, Alex,” Jay whispers. He takes the other man’s hand and leads him gently through the dark maze of tunnels. He doesn’t quite know where to go or even what they’re supposed to do after all this, but he knows that there’s safety in the water. How else could their ‘totheark’ friends have survived for this long?

He can’t prevent the inevitable pang of grief, recalling the broken shape left outside on the ground. But that wasn’t Alex. It _wasn’t._

They never would have forgiven him if it was.

So they’ll stay here. For as long as they need to.

Alex hasn’t said anything. He hasn’t stopped trembling, unable to lift his gaze from his still-bloody hands, uncharacteristically silent and submissive, nothing like the fierce and angry and _powerful_ Alex Kralie he once was. He can’t imagine what kind of horrors Alex has been subjected to - his mind invaded by something so strange and powerful, his body turned into its puppet, his rage magnified into brutal violence, his hands made to murder against his will. 

That man has all but faded now, leaving behind a broken curled shell that says nothing, does nothing but allow itself to be led meekly along.

He can’t suppress the thought that, maybe, Alex -

He might not ever speak again. 

He just looks so utterly _shellshocked_ that Jay wouldn’t be surprised, even if the thought breaks his heart.

He can’t think about that right now.

Like Tim.

Jay doesn’t think about Tim. 

“It’s gonna be okay, Alex,” Jay says with only a sliver of the other man’s confidence. “We’re gonna be okay. You always took care of me. So I’m gonna take care of you, okay?”

The other man doesn’t reply verbally, but Jay thinks he feels Alex’s grip on his hand tighten ever so slightly. He thinks.

The response coaxes a tiny, tight smile out of Jay’s constant, huddled worry. For now, that’s enough. He keeps pulling Alex gingerly through the slime-and-moss-clad sewers. He doesn’t have a destination in mind, but he doesn’t particularly need to. As long as they’re safe here.

They’re safe, and they’re together, and that’s what matters.


End file.
